


Learning to Love Jean Kirschstein

by Whorever



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, If transphobic things bother you this might not be the best to read, Jean is suffering very obviously and Marco is totally oblivious, M/M, Marco is a bit misogynistic, Marcos POV, Multi, So the beginning will feel very transphobic, The story has a lot to do with marco being trans ignorant, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Transignorant, Transphobia, female to male, just a bit tho, transgender jean
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-03-01 13:24:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 42,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2774609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whorever/pseuds/Whorever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My parents always taught me that no matter what I did in life, I should be happy. Find a girl and be happy. To me, finding a girl, marrying her, settling down and starting a family was about the only certain life goal I really had. It was the one thing that I could say was like a dream for me. For a while I thought I was lucky to have come across "The One" girl when I was so young. She was perfect in every way imaginable, it took seconds for me to want her.<br/>Falling in love with Jeanine Kirschstein came to me like drinking water.<br/>Falling in love with Jean Kirschstein I found out was a bit more like drinking bleach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted a Jean FtM fic, but I wanted it very specifically so I decided 'fuck it!' I'm just gonna write it! I'm doing a lot of background browsing and intense searching on FtM transitions and what-not so I hope to get it as accurately as I can. If anyone's got any information/experiences on it, please send me a message! Use my email or tumblr, (skire@live.com, skype: skiiiirrree)
> 
> I don't really have a bunch of other relationships for sure down yet, so I'll probably add to the tags in later chapters. Feedback on this would be really helpful!
> 
> Also! Jean's female name is supposed to be pronounced like "Juh-neen." I know I sometimes have stupid hard times with names for no reason so there you go c:

I grew up having this dream of a picture-perfect family. As a kid, I was the dork that would try to pick flowers for the girls, send them notes with stupid messages inside. I was the big dork that hoped with every fiber in my being they would check the "Yes" box in my note and we would fall in love.

  
I grew up craving for that blood boiling love. All I ever wanted was to have a girl to buy flowers for. To have a girl to take out to dinner and bring home to mom and dad. To take her on dates, and pull her into bed with me for a long night of movie watching and cuddling. I craved for a girl to plan out anniversaries with and bounce between houses during the holidays. I wanted her to be mine and everything about me to be hers. I wanted to marry her and have a family, three kids preferably. Two girls and a boy, and definitely a dog to go along with our cozy house.

  
When I was 16, I met that girl. She was everything that I wanted and anything that I didn't know I needed. There were so many things about her that took me by surprise, like the way her eyes lit up every time we passed a sports store, or how crazy lost she would get inside of a video game store. She never wanted to look at clothes, or go on romantic dates, or beg for me to tell her how amazing she was, none of that stuff that I was taught about girls growing up. She opened my eyes to how narrow minded I had been when approaching anyone that I had previously been romantically interested in.

  
Not all girls liked make up. She didn't.

  
Not all girls liked shopping for clothes. She didn't.

  
Not all girls engulfed themselves in boy bands and celebrities. She didn't.

  
Not all girls wanted to cook and clean and bake and dress up. She _definitely_ didn't.

  
It was crazy how honest to god dumb I was for believing any of the things that I had been taught growing up. While I thank her for opening me up to all of that, I'm glad I didn't know any sooner because then I might not have met her. She wasn't the housewife I had pictured myself with as a kid, but she was definitely the one I wanted to be my wife. Yeah I was still young and had time to fall out of this love, but it was something in the pit of my stomach that I just _knew_. I wanted to marry her, and while getting the breathless yes out of her when I asked her to date me wasn't the same thing, it was exactly what I imagined her face to look like when I would pop the question. Eyes lighting up and cheeks filled in with a rosy red color, her soft hands going up to her mouth and her head nodding a yes before she'd jab me right in the shoulder and call me an idiot.

  
I loved her, I wanted to marry her. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.

  
Her name was Jeanine Kirschstein. She was my best friend and the love of my stupid teenage life. We spent most of our days hanging out at mainly my house, because her dad really enforced the whole "no breathing the same air or you might get pregnant" stereotype. Of course we went out a lot, and spent time with our friends but all I wanted to do was spend my time with her. I know it's cheesy but I was almost obsessed with spending time with her. I was sure we'd be spending our lives together but I could never satisfy my need to be around her.

  
Jeanine on the other hand wasn't nearly as clingy as I was. She wanted her own breathing room from time to time and spent a few of her free days hanging out with her group of friends rather than spending time with me, and yeah sometimes I got jealous, but I wouldn't ever dare tell her to pick me over them. So what if the main reason I got jealous was because of that Eren guy she'd hang out with a lot. I know Jeanine wouldn't ever cheat on me--she was way too honest to not spit out that she wanted to see other people- but the way that the two argued felt so.. Flirtatious to me and I hated seeing it. Still, Jeanine swore to me she hung out with them for Armin and Mikasa, and not Eren, so I trusted her. I mean, I had no reason not to.

  
We were supposed to get together today to work on a cosplay that we were doing for an up coming convention. There was big group of friends we were going with and Jeanine and I were the last two to not have our part of the cosplay done. We chose to spend the time hanging out in my room, my body sprawled out on my bed while Jeanine had her head resting against my thigh like a pillow, her 3DS in her hands as she tapped away at the handheld, playing some kind of strategy game. Obviously neither of us had the motivation to get to work on it. My fingers brushed through her thick and long hair, twirling strands around my index before pulling away from the tangle and brushing through it again. The tv was on in the background, Netflix playing through seasons of "Bob's Burgers", but I really wasn't paying much attention to it.  
God ,she was so goddamn pretty.

  
"Bro, if I don't get this mother fucker I swear I will murder someone." She hissed under her breath. I chuckled, my fingers returning to her scalp, using my nails to scratch at it gently.

  
"What're you playing?" I asked.

  
"Fire Embl- _FUCK!_ " She spat out, the image on the screen going black as it cut to the game over screen, the words highlighted in red with the question to start over under it.

  
"Aw.." I breathed as she gently closed her console and then chucked it on the bed. Jeanine swatted my hand away from her scalp and then spun around on her stomach, her face deadpanned as she opened her mouth and pointed towards it.

  
I felt my heart skip as the first thing my stupid fucking brain did was think _'She wants you to put your dick in it'._

No she doesn't, brain.

  
"Cheetos." Jeanine spat out. "You had them last, now feed me."

  
Right, right, that made more sense. I turned my head to the nightstand next to me and glanced around for the chips. "I think I ate them all." I responded, not spotting the bag.

  
"Tell me you're kidding." She sat upright now, looking around the room for the bag. I beat her to it and pulled the empty bag up off the floor and then laughed as her face dropped. "UGH! You ate them all last time too."

  
"Just cause I ate the last of it, doesn't mean I ate all of them. You had most of that." I pointed out. She rolled her eyes.

  
"Yeah well, I want more." Jeanine pushed herself off the bed and looked down at me, sending me that look that said 'You're going to go me some Cheetos, i just lost my game you owe me.' I honestly had no desire to stay in bed any longer, but I played it off like she was asking me to cut off my arm as I groaned and slowly dragged myself upright. She shook her head and then grabbed my arm and pulled me up from the bed, getting me to stand straight.

  
My eyes met hers as I stumbled a bit into her, forgetting just how tall she was for a girl. I was still taller than her, but I only had her beat by a few inches. My eyes lit up as she pecked the side of my cheek before I felt her fingers jab into my sides. I jumped back in a fit of laughter. "Hey, hey! I'm going! I never said I wasn't!"

  
Jeanine's fingers ceased, a smile on her lips. "Oh I know, I was just giving you a warning if you changed your mind."

  
Now, I had been in my lazy clothes all day long when Jeanine decided to come over. She was dressed up in a pair of dark skinny jeans that fit along her hips so well. She had on a grey tank-top, and a thick zip-up Panic! At the disco hoodie that she swore she didn't even like that much.  
I tossed off my baggy shirt and pulled out a white v-neck, sliding it over my head. The blue striped pajamas came off afterward, sending Jeanine a look to turn away like I actually cared if she saw me in my boxers. She turned her head up to the ceiling, but I could feel her eyes on me the second I turned away. I dug in my closet, looking for a specific pair of pants to put on as I heard Jeanine shuffling around by my mirror. Picking up the pair of 'loose-fit' skinny jeans I was searching for, I turned towards Jeanine and saw her pulling her hair back, bringing all of her bangs out of her face as she looked over her jaw line. I slid on the pair of pants and turned back for a cardigan to throw on.

  
"D'ya think I'd look good with short hair?"

  
I was buttoning up the last button on the cardigan as I stepped out of the closet, examining her. I bit my lip. "Honestly, you could probably shave your head and I'd still find you attractive."

  
"I think I'm gonna cut off my hair.." She breathed, letting go of her thick hair and shaking it back into place as she turned to look at me. Jeanine spat out a laugh, shaking her head. "Oh my god you are _such_ a nerd." I feigned a look of offense as she almost snorted from my outfit. "Seriously, can you look any dorkier?"

  
"Rude." I stated, walking towards my dresser and grabbing my wallet off of it, along with my keys and phone. She smirked at me, patting me on the shoulder and heading towards the door. I followed after her, sending my mom a quick 'We're going out' and then rushing for the door before she could trap me in an hour long lecture about staying safe.

  
Against all the groaning in the world, Jeanine still let me hold her hand as we walked down the street, heading out of the neighborhood and up to the nearest convenience store just around the corner from us to get her another goddamn bag of Cheetos. I couldn't hide the smile that I had on my lips as I looked down at her, her sandy blond hair curling around her sharp jaw line. She puffed a strand of hair out of her eyes, looking over to me. "Hey so like, when you're walking what happens with your junk and stuff?"

  
She asked stuff like this a lot. Stuff I never even thought twice about. I understood the curiosity since it seemed weird to think about how it'd feel walking around with something _not_ down there, but I was always taken back a second when she'd ask. "Why do you care about that?" I chuckled, brushing my thumb against hers.

  
"Because it's weird, and I couldn't get Eren or Armin to tell me."

  
I looked away, bringing a hand to my neck. "Well I mean.. It's just there, it doesn't really do anything."

  
"Ugh," She scoffed. "Can't you guys be more specific, that's the same thing Jaeger said."

  
"I don't know what else you want me to say about it!" I responded with. Jeanine leaned in towards me.

  
"Like you know, where's it go? Like what's it doing right now?"

  
"It's just _there_ , Jeanine, I don't know how else to put it. It just kinda sits off to the side." She looked more satisfied with that response than anything else, pulling back and looking back out at the sidewalk.

  
I didn't think much of her questions at all, and even if I did, I wasn't sure I could ever ask her about it. Jeanine was walking at a slower pace than I was, forcing me to change my leg stride as she lagged behind, her eyes looking off in the distance.

"You alright?"

"Yeah, just having epiphanies about dicks is all." Her hazel eyes shot back to me, a smirk on her face. I couldn't help but laugh.

"They're not that fascinating, jesus."

  
"You wouldn't be saying that if I were down there." She cooed, turning the corner and dragging me with her as we headed towards the parking lot of the 7/11. I felt a blush creep up on my face at her words.

  
"Well if that's what it takes then yeah. Dicks are crazy fascinating, you wouldn't believe how incredible they are-" She cut me off before I could be anymore of an asshole by giving me a playful slap to the shoulder.

  
We walked into the store, glancing around at the damn near spotless place, eyes going up and down the numerous bags of junk food that were lined up neatly on the aisles. "Oh not you two," We heard from over our shoulder. The two of us turned around to look down the aisle just ahead of us spotting a short male knelt down on the ground and taking count of something, bags of snacks scattered around him and a clipboard in his lap.

  
"Levi!" Jeanine sang, then pointed down at the chips around the man. "You wouldn't happen to want to 'miss count' one of those bags down there would ya?"

  
His eyes shot up to us like he had been centuries done with our existence. He didn't answer her question as he went back to jotting something down on his clipboard.

  
Levi was the store owner of this crummy convenience store, usually only caught in a pair of black pants, a white long sleeved shirt and some kind of green apron that he used as his 'uniform' to make sure people knew he was allowed behind the counter. He hated his job and it was obvious from the look on his face that he did, but he still did his work damn near perfect. The store always smelled of some kind of cleaner and more often than not had they walked in to hearing him telling one of his employees to clean something. He was a broke guy, paying for rent and school while he struggled in his last year of college, balancing homework here and overwork there it was amazing that no one ever caught him passed out in one of the aisles.

  
His hand went up to his eyes, his fingers rubbing his socket as he let out a yawn.

  
He also almost always worked the overnight too, so seeing him here at 6 in the afternoon was actually unusual. "What's got you here so early?" I asked, watching as he brought his pen to his lip and chewed on the end of it.

  
"Truck order,and walk outs." He stated, scribbling something down. "Do me a favor and tell me if Samuel's leaning on the counter or not."

  
Jeanine peeked towards the front, seeing a tall and tan looking male with his elbow propped up on the counter and head resting in his hand. "Sure is." She stated turning back to Levi.

  
The older man let out a deep breath of disappointment, leaning down towards the end of the aisle. "Sam, go wipe the coolers down like I told you to do an hour ago." The guy at the front jolted straight up and immediately went into movement as he headed towards the back. Levi sat back, shaking his head. "If I didn't need him so badly, I would've fired him weeks ago.."

  
"You guys short staffed?" I asked, Jeanine looking at something at the front of the aisle.

  
"Marco, I've been working since three this morning and I don't get to go home until five in the morning tonight. I've had three people quit on me today." He pulled away from his clipboard and brought his tired eyes to mine. "Short staffed doesn't even cut it."

  
"Ah man, I'm sorry." I breathed, rubbing my arm as I looked at the mess he was surrounded with. He didn't look affected by the words, his eyes staring down at some sprawled out bags around him as he counted them.

  
Jeanine played with some loose strands of hair, twirling them between her fingers. "So, you think I could get a job here?" She asked.

  
"Fill out an app and you're hired." Levi responded with, setting the clipboard down and taking the bags off the ground and stocking them back on the shelf. I shot a questionable look over to Jeanine, raising an eyebrow at the light of hope that glimmered in her eyes. "Summer's coming up too, and I'm gonna have to hire double the amount I need right now.." He let out a groan as he seemed to give up on life for a moment.

  
"You sure you wanna work here?" I questioned, watching as Jeanine bounced on her heels.

  
"You don't." Levi spat out.

  
"I don't want to work at all, but I want money so yeah. Why not? Plus," She knelt down to the poor man on the floor, her hands squeezing onto his shoulders and getting a rather satisfying groan out of him as she massaged his shoulders for a minute. "I care so much about Lev- _holy shit_ you are _crazy_ tense, don't you ever relax?"

  
I watched as Levi slowly started to ease forward as Jeanine continued to rub along his neck, clearly not intending to actually give him anything close to a massage. His head dropped downward, "Ooh, you're gonna make me fall asleep..." He huffed out, his pen hovering over the clipboard. Jeanine laughed, pulling away and standing upright to look at me.

  
Don't be jealous, Marco. You're better than that, don't be jealous.

  
I put on a smile for her as she retraced her thought process. "But yeah.. Levi, take a hot bath or something, the amount of knots in your shoulders is terrifying."

  
"Yeah, yeah," He fanned a hand to us and went back to his counting.

  
"You should apply too, dork." Jeanine suggested. I just shrugged my shoulders.

  
"Ma doesn't want me to get a job during school."

  
"Summer's coming up." Levi tossed in, taking a bag of chips from his count and holding it out to Jeanine. "And you're turning eighteen this summer, right? I could put you on overnights."

  
"Aw, _fuck yes!_ " Jeanine squirmed taking the bag and tearing it open. It wasn't Cheetos, but free chips were still free chips.

  
"You drop a crumb on this floor, I'll kick your ass." Levi threatened before turning back to me. "Seriously though Marco, You could work for just the summer, it's all I'd really need you for."

  
"I'll run it by ma first." I replied with a shrug. I really had no desire to get a job because I knew once I did, dad was going to start talking to me about responsibility and what-not. The only good thing about getting a job would be the money really and spending it on stupid things like clothes and maybe getting something for Jea-. "Actually, where are your applications? I can just fill one out and pass it by ma later."

  
Levi actually looked up from his work and raised an eyebrow before using his pen to point towards the front counter. "Ask Samuel for it. Bring me back a five hour energy off the counter too while you're at it."

  
Jeanine followed me up to the register, shoveling chips into her mouth as she stared at me with a quizzical look. "So what was with that change of heart?"

  
I shrugged not wanting to admit I just wanted to smother her in gifts. "Nothing, it's like you said, I want money."

  
She wiped her hand off on her hoodie, stuffing the remainder of the chips in her pocket as she leaned over the counter. "Hey yo, Sam!" It wasn't a second longer that the tan boy from earlier came teetering out of the back room, a bottle of Windex hanging off his belt. "Levi told us to get some apps from you?"

  
"O-oh, alright, uh," He fumbled around the counter, clearly in a panic over making sure he did everything right under Levi's watch. He pulled out two sheets of paper for us, Jeanine stealing one of the pens for sale off the counter and taking a bottle of the energy shot Levi asked for then heading back towards the short grump on the floor. I followed behind her, taking one of the pens from Samuel instead and looking over the application.

  
Levi peeled the wrapper off of the plastic bottle and drank the whole shot in one bitter swift gulp. "God, these things are disgusting.." He winced, setting the empty bottle beside him.

  
"How many of those have you had so far?" I asked, remembering how long he'd been awake for.

  
"It's the first one. I'm normally waking up right about now." Levi finally stood up from his spot, his mess of miscellaneousness shelf items all put back neatly. "What a great day off this has turned out to be.." He mumbled to himself.

  
Jeanine was currently scribbling down her information, her head shooting over towards Levi when she heard that. "Today was your day off?!"

  
"If you could call it that. I've got a test in my Organic Chemistry class and a pre-test in biology that I was planning to study for today, but that's not happening." He let out a sigh as he headed towards the front counter.

  
"Your life makes me sad." Jeanine muttered, looking over her filled out application. "Like, if I didn't want to go to school before, I have an even less desire to now."

  
"You should see the amount of debt I'm in." Levi scoffed as Jeanine handed her application over.

  
I had busied myself with jotting down my information while they talked, Levi trying to convince Jeanine to go into something easier than medicine, while simultaneously going on about how stupid school was in the first place. I slipped him my application, Levi taking both the papers and placing them underneath the papers on his clipboard.

  
"Look, just... Just don't be a prostitute. Literally do anything else but that. Fuck it, be a prostitute, I don't care." Levi waved his hand in the air while Jeanine just laughed.

  
"I'll go for the halfway point and just make it as a stripper. Maybe a playboy bunny?"

  
"You're not girly enough for playboy, hun." Jeanine rolled her eyes, sending me a smile as she turned away from Levi. The shorter man let out a huff of air as he mumbled something to himself about doing something in the back. "You two should scat, I got shit I gotta do."

  
"Well duh, it's not like we wanted to hang out here anyway." Jeanine teased, pushing off the counter and slapping my ass as she headed for the door. I sent a wave to Levi as I turned and followed her towards the doors. "See ya later, Shorty!"

  
"Bye Levi!"

  
"Call me that again and I'll kick your uterus straight out your throat!" Jeanine cackled to herself as we rushed out of there, her hand finding mine and dragging me towards the benches that were off to the side, next to the parking lot. It didn't really fit next to a 7/11, but this place used to be an ice cream shop so they kept the benches and just painted them green. I sat down with her, watching as she used her free hand to brush her hair out of her face. Her lips curved into a smile, her eyes lighting up with the way the sun shined in them, making her eyebrows knit together as she squinted.

  
She was so fucking beautiful.

  
I slid my hand up her neck and gently pulled her towards my lips, whispering a soft 'I love you' as I pulled away from her.

  
Our lips hovered over each other's for a moment, listening to the way her breath caught in her throat. A sudden panic look split through her face and for a moment, my heart dropped. "Marco.." She breathed against my lips. I watched her, paying sharp attention to the way her features softened and her eyes held onto that fear. "I..."

  
"Jeanine...?" I breathed, using my thumb to brush against her cheek. The panic that was on her face disappeared, her infamous smirk taking over her features instead.

  
"I love you too, dork." She settled with. The way the words came off her lips felt like a safety net to what she really wanted to say. I gave her a comforting smile, pulling my hand away from her face.

  
"You alright? You seemed like you wanted to tell me something." I asked.

  
Jeanine just shrugged her shoulders, kicking her feet under the bench and digging her shoes into the dirt. "I just had this weird idea like, what if when we kissed, something like a Disney movie happened?"

  
I raised an eyebrow letting out a laugh. I could hardly ever keep up with the way her brain jumped around like it did. "What do you mean? Like you'd be engulfed in sparkles and come out in a crazy gown?"

  
"No, no, like what if you turned into a frog? Or.. I turned into a..." Her voice went soft and low, biting her lip like she was scared to say it. "Boy."

  
"Huh." I bit my lip thinking on it. "Well, I mean would it stay that way? I don't want to be a frog forever you know."

  
She just shrugged her shoulders again. "I guess, what would you do if I turned into a boy? And I couldn't go back?"

  
"..." I was quiet for a minute, trying to imagine Jeanine as a guy. I couldn't picture it. I mean sure, she acted sorta like one, closer to a guy than a girl at least, but I couldn't see what the guy version of her would look like. Not to mention, would we still be dating? I mean.. "I don't think I'd do anything differently. I guess we'd just..Not be able to date anymore."

  
A look of pain shot through her face, turning away and looking at the ground. "Why's that?" She breathed out. "Why wouldn't we be able to date anymore?"

  
"Well, cause we'd be two guys then. I mean I figured you wouldn't want to date me of all people if you were a guy. You'd probably want to do 'guy stuff', right?" The pain on her face disappeared and a look of relief washed over her. I put my hand on her shoulder, her eyes dragging up to meet mine. "You alright? You've been asking a lot of weird stuff today."

  
She seemed to hesitate before answering, settling for a shrug. "I'm alright." Jeanine pushed herself off of the bench, turning to look down on me. "I don't mean any of it, just curious." She then brought her fingers up to her hair and smiled. "Oh, except for cutting my hair off, I'm totally doing that as soon as I get home tonight."

  
I laughed, standing up from my spot and lacing our hands together, leading us away from the convenience store and back towards my house. "Well come on. We should really get to work on our outfits, you know."

  
Jeanine nodded in agreement as we headed back to my house, talking about different ways to get herself to look more like a guy for her cosplay.

* * *

 

 

The convention came around a lot faster than I had expected, Jeanine and I hanging out in the hotel room and getting ready with everyone else that we had come with.

  
Our Group cosplay had started off as a joke when Jeanine said that Eren had the same kind of temper that Edward Elric did from Full Metal Alchemist. It then sprawled into this whole list of who would be who from the show and we ended up actually deciding to go through with the entire group doing a group cosplay. For a while there were a lot of 'i'm not sure i can do it' but with our friend Sasha and her awesome welding ability, we were able to get a crazy good looking automail for Eren's cosplay, and an awesome Al suit for our friend Reiner. In return, Reiner got help from his grandma to make _all_ of our costumes.

  
Of course, we helped as much as we could and had her do the bare minimum of the outfit, since that was a _lot_ of people she had to sew for. She said she didn't mind though because it was the same outfit and it made it easier on her to sew the same uniform over and over again. Still, she was a sweet old lady and we all knew she'd say that even if she hated it. (Bertholdt told me a couple of times that Reiner actually did most of the sewing rather than his grandma, but the blond wouldn't admit it.)

  
The hotel room was a huge mess with clothes scattered everywhere and way too many people fitting into such a small space, even if it was the biggest the hotel had offered. We were a large group and it was crazy exciting to be able to pull off the cosplay with so many other people.  
Eren was cosplaying as Ed, Armin was going as Winry, Reiner as Alphonse, Mikasa was going as Roy Mustang with Annie as Riza Hawkeye. Bertholdt had been shoved into the position of cosplaying as Scar, because he was tall and had the same basic skin tone, his personality really clashed with the character though, but he pulled it off. Sasha and Connie were cosplaying as Ling Yao and May Chang. Ymir had successfully talked her girlfriend Krista as going as Lust, with her as Envy. Then finally I was going as Maes Hughes and Jeanine was going as none other than Jean Havoc.

  
I looked over to her, still not used to the way she chopped all her hair off. I watched as she shuffled her hair around, trying to get it the way she wanted. She based her new hair cut off of Havoc's, the sides of her head shaved and the top part longer towards the front. She kept her natural hair color with it, but her sides looked much darker than the rest of her hair.

  
I missed her long hair, but she looked crazy hot with her hair like that. I spent the first week of her new hairstyle running my hands through it and ruffling it around and telling her how much I loved it. Jeanine seemed to love it too, she seemed happier with it.

  
She turned away from the mirror, wearing nothing but her bra and underwear as she looked around the room for her binder. She wasn't exactly small in the breast size department, but they weren't enormous either. I told her she could probably get away with not having to bind herself but she insisted on getting the binder, because she wanted it to be perfect. Her other argument was in case it got hot and she had to take the uniform jacket off. She didn't want people to know she was a girl doing the cosplay. Jeanine said that it'd be the first sign she did a suck ass job at the cosplay if people could tell.

  
I tried to tell her she was being too hard on herself, but she never listened.

  
"Help me." She spat out, drawing my attention away from her almost naked body and up to see her holding out the binder. I had everything but my jacket on, deciding to get that on last when everyone else was ready. There was a loud bang coming from outside the door followed by Sasha wailing about how Eren couldn't throw his props around and a howl of laughter from everyone else.

  
I took the binder from Jeanine's hands and looked at her. "What do you want me to do?" I asked. She turned her back towards me and then undid her bra, pulling it off and discarding it somewhere on the floor. She took her hands and held her breasts inward, pushing them flat against her chest.

  
"I need you to hold my boobs like this."

  
I didn't hesitate handing over her binder in exchange for a handful of breasts. She rolled her eyes at how quickly I went for them, taking the binder and pulling it over her head. She slipped the cloth over her chest, smacking my hands away as she pulled her breast back to let the binder do its work. Jeanine adjusted it multiple times, slipping her hand through the binder by the armpit and pulling at her skin to get it just right. I sat back on the bed, taking her pants off the ground and holding them out to her as she spun around to me.

  
Jeanine took them and slipped them on excitedly, then grabbed the black t-shirt she had and pulled it over her head. My eyes went up in surprise at the quick transformation that she went through. "Dude," I started, pointing towards the mirror. "You look just like a dude."

  
Jeanine turned towards the mirror and she froze. Her eyes widened a bit as she brought a hand to her face, looking over her reflection. She turned to the side, pulling at the shirt to see the way that the binder shaped her body, the pants hiding the girlish curves of her hips. If I didn't know her, I would've assumed she was a guy.

  
My smile faded when I watched her face, the way her lip quivered for a moment. Her eyes were lit up with some kind of hope, running her hand through her short hair. For some reason, the only thing that crossed through my mind at that moment was the question she had asked me back at Levi's store.

  
_What would you do if I turned into a boy? And I couldn't go back?_


	2. Panic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright so, I was not expecting to get as much feedback as I did after only posting the first chapter. I just want to give you all a big thank you, and I hope this story satisfies all your needs.  
> I got a bit more explicit than I meant to, so I apologize for that, but again. Thanks for all the feedback!

I don't think that in the whole time I knew Jeanine, I had ever seen her happier than she was when she cosplayed Havoc. She looked and felt so natural and comfortable, she pulled it off so amazingly. Our group got stopped so often for pictures, it was a great self-esteem booster for her.

  
Reiner and Eren got the most attention out of anyone and I didn't blame them, Sasha did an amazing job on their outfits. There had been a couple of times when Reiner was being stopped by people that they showered him in all the compliments about what a great job he did on the outfits, to which the blond had simply just directed them to Sasha. The poor girl had so many people flocking to her and asking her if she could make so many different things. Connie was at the point that he had to swat them away if they wanted to get anywhere.

  
Ymir had ended up instantly regretting her decision on convincing Krista to cosplay as Lust. She really didn't think that Krista would've gotten so much attention since she was a bit off on the characteristics, but guys were glued to her. Ymir did more than scare them off whenever they made inappropriate remarks or gestures to her, and by the end of the day, those two were the first to get out of their costumes, returning back to the convention in borderline pajamas.

Jeanine was the first one to head back to the hotel, telling me that she needed to get her binder off because it was starting to hurt. I asked if she wanted me to come with her, but she declined. I spent most of the night hanging out with Bertholdt, Connie, and Sasha after she left. Mikasa had been on make-up and wig duty, fixing everyone's hair and makeup when things got a bit frayed. She'd given on Bertholdt after he kept wiping and scratching at the makeshift scar he had on his face. He looked like he wanted to tear his wig off with the way he kept reaching for his head only to stop short and bring it back to his side.

  
I got my fill of jokes from the three after about an hour or so and was ready to head back to the hotel to see Jeanine. I sent her a text message to see how she was but I never got a response so I decided on just heading back. I said my goodbyes to the group, Reiner mentioning that he'd probably be heading back soon to get out of his suit. He told me to give him a heads up if we "needed more time" to which I let Jeanine show through me and slapped his shoulder.

  
On the way back to the hotel, I thought that maybe Jeanine would be passed out in one of the beds, halfway out of her clothes. Maybe she'd be in nothing but her underwear watching adult swim and getting into the snacks we brought. I thought maybe she'd actually be in her pajamas for a change and on her laptop laughing at stupid Youtube videos.

  
The absolute last thing I expected to see her doing was sitting on the floor beside our bed crying.

  
She still had her binder on, but the rest of her clothes had been discarded, save for a pair of my pajama bottoms. "Jeanine?" I breathed, leaning into the room gently. I didn't want to intrude on her, but I wanted her to know that I was there.

  
Her sobs stopped instantly and I watched her hands immediately reach up for her face, wiping away at the tears she cried. She turned her head away from the doorway as she sniffled. I let out a sigh as I stepped in, closing the door behind me. "Hey, what's wrong?" I whispered coming to her side. She was biting her lip to keep from crying any more. I put my hands on her shoulders and pulled her into my chest, hugging her. Jeanine relaxed instantly, taking her face and burying it into the nape of my neck. I pressed my lips to the top of her head, kissing her. Jeanine let out a hot breath against my skin before pulling away, wiping her face again.

  
"I can't take it off." She choked.

  
"Oh my god, Jeanine.." I laughed, adjusting my body so that I was in front of her now. "C'mon, I'll help." Her eyes watched me, the light reflecting in them telling me that wasn't what she meant by it. She blinked, lifting her arms up in the air and looking down. I took the top part of the cloth and pulled it up over her head, her arms going to her breasts afterwards and rubbing them. I placed the binder on the ground beside our bags and nodded for her to get in the bed with me. She hesitated, but climbed in after I pulled the sheets back, not bothering to find a shirt to wear. I pulled my shirt off over my head, along with the pants from the costume and tossed them towards the edge of the bed, Jeanine kicking them off completely. She pulled the sheet up to her neck, turning her body into mine and pressing her face against my chest after I had settled in. "You sure that's what you were crying about?"

  
"..." She didn't say anything, her eyes fixed on my chest. "You know everyone's going to think we had sex if they see us like this."

  
"Don't worry, Reiner made sure they already think that." Jeanine rolled her eyes, her hands rubbing at her breasts again. I was hoping to get a laugh out of her from that, but her lips were pursed. I brought my hand towards her head and combed through the short strands, hoping it'd help her relax. She looked up towards me and then leaned up and kissed me.  
  
"Marco...I..." The same panic that gleamed in her eyes after our kiss in front of the 7/11 came back, hiding in her pupils as she stared up at me. "I looked good today, right?"

  
"Of course you did." I reassured, scratching at her scalp as I brushed my fingers through her hair. "Why, did you think you looked bad?"

  
She shook her head and went quiet. I waited for her to say something but she never did. Her eyes drifted shut as she ran her finger in a circle on my chest, tracing her nail along the body freckles I had like she was connecting the dots.

  
It baffled me how Jeanine could look so beautiful and happy earlier when we were cosplaying to dropping into such a wreck when she got out of her costume. I stared at the curves of her face, dragging my eyes along her strong jaw. Even when she was a wreck like this she was still absolutely breath taking.

* * *

 

Jeanine's mood didn't improve much after the convention. She spent the night at my place instead of going home the first day back. I didn't blame her, having to get up so early to pack and clean up was absolutely exhausting. The two of us passed out on my bed up until my mom came to get us for some dinner.

  
She walked home the next day, telling me that she had to recuperate enough for work that day. Levi had gotten Jeanine in at his store pretty much as fast as he could, and he'd been working her to death since she started. The only thing she asked for was to have the weekend off for the convention and Levi happily obliged if it meant having another worker. Jeanine complained about the stupid amount of tedious tasks there were to do, and about how she never even worked with Levi either. There was some other guy that didn't do much but try to act like he was Levi and the guy was apparently annoying as shit about it.

  
I told Levi I didn't want to start until after my birthday and with it being only a few days away, he was already sending Jeanine home with reminders about it. She told me that they still really needed workers, and that I should just start now and get it over with. I was tempted, but the way Levi had Jeanine working overtime just about every single week had really kept me from going in any sooner.

  
She never really said the work was hard, it was just that there was so much to do and no one to do it. She explained to me that apparently there should be roughly around fifteen workers to keep everyone at a fair amount of hours and to have a better availability but since she started, the most amount of workers they've ever had was seven.

  
I thought that the fifty hours Jeanine was working was a lot but she said it was nothing next to what Levi had to pull. Apparently with them only able to keep about four workers, Levi was pulling open to closes three times a week. Jeanine asked one time how many hours he was at and he couldn't even give her a response because he lost count.

  
The absolute worst part about it was that he didn't even get paid for the extra work. He was paid for forty hours a week every week, and for the past couple of months he'd been working almost double that. Apparently that's supposed to be a benefit for being on salary.

  
I got distracted from my show when my phone went off, a specific ringtone indicating that I had message from Jeanine.

  
 **Jeanine <3:** samuel just walked out marco its levis 8hours off what do i do

  
"Oh shit," I breathed. Before I could respond my phone went off again.

  
 **Jeanine <3**: he called levi omg

  
I sent back a question mark wondering what was happening. My phone fell silent for a couple of minutes before it blared off again.

  
 **Jeanine <3:** marco i think levi is gonna cry

  
 **Jeanine <3:** nvm he just broke a coffee pot and scared off our customers

  
 **Marco:** Is he gonna be alright? Do you want me to do anything?

  
I didn't even work there and I was already dreading having to go up there for my first day. It sounded so stressful and sure I felt bad for Levi, but how was he not getting any help? It seemed like everyone needed a job, not to mention, wouldn't he be able to get workers from other stores to cover from time to time?

  
 **Jeanine <3:** levis asking if ur gonna work here or not hes so mad im scared D:

  
 **Marco:** Yeah, ask when he wants me to start

  
I stared at the screen of my phone, waiting for a response. He was going to say tomorrow, there was no doubt about it. I was going to have to cover all of Samuel's shifts, or at least what I was allowed to. Then once I hit eighteen, I was going to be sentenced to the same fifty hour work weeks as Jeanine.

  
 **Jeanine <3**: he said right now hes not kidding either he wants you here like asap

  
 **Marco:** Aw goddammit. What am I supposed to wear.

  
 **Jeanine <3:** levi said you could show up naked and he wouldn't care

  
I let out a heavy sigh as I grudgingly pulled myself out of bed and threw on more appropriate clothes as my marathon of Orange is the New Black came to an end.

  
When Jeanine said that Levi was mad, I was expecting him to be screaming at children and punching kittens, but to see the absolute look of anger and pure silence on him was even worse. Jeanine's eyes were on me with a warning look as I walked towards the counter, seeing Levi leaning against the wall while on the phone. I turned to Jeanine and raised an eyebrow.

  
"Who's he talking to?" I asked.

  
"Some kind of supervisor. He's trying to get people transferred, but they're not answering him." She shrugged her shoulders as she finished cleaning up what must've been the broken coffee pot she had mentioned.

  
I turned back towards Levi who had pulled the phone away from his ear and slammed it on the counter. He didn't say anything as he looked at me and waved me back behind the counter.

  
To say the least, I was actually kind of scared.

  
I followed him behind the counter, looking at all the miscellaneous items that were tucked away in shelves and lined along the walls. There was a back hallway that Levi went down, one leading towards the cooler area where I assumed the truck would unload. Levi stopped at an open room, pulling me into what I took a guess at to be the office by the computer and filing cabinet that sat there. He pulled an apron off of the coat rack and tossed it at me. "You're me today. How late can you work?"

  
"Uh," I breathed looking for a clock. It was only two in the afternoon. "I-I don't know. I'm still a minor, how long can I work for?"

  
"For every five hours you work, half an hour needs to be a break. You're not supposed to work more than seventeen hours in a week, but that won't be a problem in a couple of days, right?" Levi turned to the computer, punching in something on the keyboard. He reached to the side of the desk and pulled out a clipboard, the same one he had from a couple weeks back. He flipped through the pages and it was then that I noticed my application there. He slipped the paper out of the clipboards hold and set it by the keyboard, typing away as he stared at my information.

  
"No, that's fine." I mumbled, taking the apron and throwing it over my neck. It felt weird, but it at least smelled like clean laundry. I adjusted the neck strap so that it fit better, and then tied it loosely around my back.

  
Levi ran a hand through his hair, setting my application on top of the keyboard and stepping away from the computer. "God, I can't do this right now. Make sure you write down your hours and I'll just adjust it in the computer later."

  
"Okay."

  
"Jeanine already said she'd work until whenever but _fuck,_ this is such _bullshit_." Levi rubbed at his eye, clearly on his last ounce of patience. "Go help Jeanine, I'll be back here trying to get one of these ignorant mother fuckers to actually _fucking do something!_ " He raised his voice like whoever he was talking about could hear him as he picked up a cordless phone and dialed in some number.

  
I whispered a quick 'alright' and then turned and headed back towards the front. Jeanine was bagging up some customers items when I got up there, stepping away from the counter as said customer left. She looked back at me and made a comical face. "Nice." She laughed, pointing at the apron.

  
I just shrugged. "Yeah, Levi seems pretty mad."

  
Her eyes widened like she was telling me I had no idea. "You should've seen him when he first got in. Marco, I thought he was going to kill _everyone_. I didn't think anyone was capable of being that angry and calm at the same time."

  
"Yeah.." I winced, looking around the counter. "So, how do I work?" I asked.

  
Jeanine chuckled and then nodded her head towards the register. "C'mon, it took me like twenty minutes to get the register down. It's super easy."

  
She spent almost an hour teaching me all of the buttons and things that went with the register. At one point during all of it, we both heard yells from the office coming from Levi that were some of the most hilarious and threatening insults we'd ever heard.

  
We forgot them almost instantly, but the one we did remember was him calling whoever he had been talking to a "tossed nutsack handler." It took all we could to stifle our laughter as the two of us cleaned around the coffee area. Levi stepped out of the back office a few minutes after looking just _slightly_ more relaxed than he had been. He walked out from behind the counter and headed over towards me. I felt my heart stop for a minute, worried that I had done something wrong, but all he did was come up to me and fish into the apron pocket, pulling out his keys. He rubbed his eye sockets again, the bags under them darker than I had ever seen them. "You guys think you can handle it alone in here for a few hours? I need to get some kind of sleep."

  
Jeanine nodded. "Yeah we should be fine, only thing I can't do are the overrides."

  
"Just use my code and do it, I know you're not gonna steal anything." Levi pulled off a portion of the keys from his clip and handed them over to Jeanine. "I'll be in my car. If it gets crazy, I'm just going to close the store down, I'm done dealing with those assholes." He then turned and headed towards the door, leaving Jeanine and I standing by the coffee machine.

  
"How long are you going to work for?" I asked, taking the rag I had in my hand and running it along the edge of the machine. She just shrugged.

  
"Probably as long as I can physically stand it. Levi's been pretty good on making sure I've gotten enough breaks and stuff, plus he said if I work a bunch of over time it might make the supervisor guy actually do something." Jeanine started a fresh pot of coffee, looking over at me. "Not to mention the checks for this are going to be crazy awesome."

  
"Eh," I hummed, straightening out some of the sugar packets. "Money's great and all, but I don't think you should over work yourself."

  
"I can handle it." She countered, a slight bit of venom in her voice. "We should see if anyone else wants to work here though. I feel bad for Levi."

  
"Yeah.." That much was true. Jeanine at least had a choice on whether or not she wanted to work over time, Levi was pretty much fucked right about now. If they had just a couple more people, Levi might actually be able to have a day off. "Who could we ask?"

* * *

 

Jeanine had been right about the register being easy enough to learn. I made a few mistakes, but all of them had been fixable. My first week there was miserable. Going from laying on my ass all day to pushing overtime felt almost impossible for my body to adjust to. Jeanine and I went off spreading applications to all of our friends while Levi hired literally anyone that turned in an application on the spot.

  
Most quit after their first day, and I didn't really blame them. Levi was strict as all hell about the way he wanted his store to be cleaned. Jeanine gave me all the tips and tricks to it before Levi got the chance to tear me a new one, so I dodged a bullet, but I'd seen him go to town on some poor kid that really wasn't that great of a worker to begin with.

  
By the beginning of July, Levi's store really only had our friends left to it. He had hired in Eren, Armin, Mikasa, Krista, Connie and Sasha, all of which had made bets against each other on who would last the longest.

  
To everyone's surprise, Eren had become Levi's favorite out of the six of them, apparently being the only one "that could actually clean a fucking cooler right and handle the animals" as he put it. The 'animals' he mentioned had been a reference to our customers. None of them really did a bad job, I just think Levi was trying to be hard on them so that he had some dependable workers.

  
Once the eight of us had all been trained up and working regularly, the stress from working so much had started to vanish. Levi looked a lot healthier than on my first day, even if he still had bags under his eyes from all the studying he did when he wasn't working. He had his day manager Oluo, but other than that, he didn't have any other managers. Levi brought up a couple of times to Jeanine and I about becoming managers, but none of it ever seemed serious. He said he'd rather me be one over Jeanine, just because I seemed to handle customers the best.

  
I didn't want to. It wasn't because of the added responsibility or longer hours, it was all because then I didn't think I'd ever be able to see Jeanine. With the lack of workers, we were already working opposite schedules, maybe seeing each other for an hour or so between our shifts.

  
We never had the same days off, and whenever one of us was free, the other was working. If Jeanine was working at night, I'd usually walk up to work just to see her, but that was as far as our hanging out went.

  
Levi promised that once he got more workers in, he'd get us some similar free time, but neither of us thought that would've happened at all.We were both pleasantly surprised when I checked the schedule for the next week and Levi had given us the weekend off.

  
Surprised wasn't even the right word for it, because the two of us _always_ worked the weekends. Everyone in the store was usually put on weekends because of how busy it was.

  
I questioned Levi about it afterward to which he said that it was his way of saying thank you for helping him out so much. He said the two of us would unfortunately be 'on call' but he doubted that he'd need us.

  
I was so happy about having two days off in a row and even more thrilled when I realized I got to spend them with Jeanine. I sent her a picture of the schedule with the caption "It's like winning the lottery" on it.

  
She responded with a demand for pizza and video games.

  
Jeanine got off later than I did once the weekend hit, so I took the extra time to clean up my room. The poor place had faced horrible neglect from all of the working I had been doing and I really didn't want Jeanine to know it ever got as bad as it did. Mom got nosy as all hell when she heard me vacuuming, asking me a million questions about "What's the special occasion?" and "Is there anything you want me to make for you?" followed by the greatest "I can get your dad and I to leave for a couple of hours if needed".

  
It took all the teenage groaning I could muster to finally get her to leave me alone, but she didn't skip a beat when she shut the door with a "make sure you use a condom sweetie, and don't double-wrap it's not safe." She was the sweetest, really.

  
I was laying on my bed, just freshly showered and dressed in lazy clothes when Jeanine finally got off work. She said she was going to stop at home first to clean up and grab some things, so I didn't expect to see her until at least an hour from then.

  
When she finally did arrive, I caught my parents being nosy assholes again, both suddenly having something to get from the kitchen when the two of us walked by. She had on a pair of basketball styled shorts and a plain white t-shirt. Jeanine had her bag of games with her, plopping down with it in my room after we walked in.

  
"Smells pretty clean in here, Levi rubbin' off on ya?" She joked, looking around at my room.

  
"I think he would've had a heart attack if he saw how it looked just a couple of hours ago." I responded with, shutting the door behind me. It's okay, my parents were pretty laid back about the whole 'boy sharing the same air as girl' thing if you couldn't tell from earlier.

  
"Bro, my room is a hot mess right now. I had to run out the door to keep Ma from lecturing me about it." She shuffled through her bag before pulling out a handful of games, turning to look up at me. The choice of clothes she had on, mixed with the short hairstyle she had now made her look a lot like a guy.

  
I took a seat next to her, taking my hand and ruffling through her hair with it as she set the stack of games down on the ground. She wormed away from the touch, but I took her by the shoulders and pulled her into me, pressing my lips to her head. "You are such a dude it's not even funny." I commented.

  
She bit her lip, trying to hold back a smile. "Shut up, dork." She chuckled, her hand going back into her bag. "Oh, I picked something up from work too.." Jeanine smirked as she quickly brought a box out of her bag and chucked it at me. I fumbled with it, turning it over in my lap and going red when I saw what it was.

  
"You uh.. You got a lot of expectation, you know." I stated, holding out the black box of condoms with the golden words MAGNUM sprawled across the top.

  
Jeanine shrugged like it wasn't that big of a deal. "Levi said those would be the best to go with. He told me unless you had a micro dick, they'd fit just fine."

  
"You told _Levi!?_ " I choked out.

  
"Well he kind of had to ring me up for it, so it was pretty much unavoidable!" Jeanine defended.

  
"Oh my god." I buried my face in my hands, completely embarrassed that out of all the people I saw on a weekly basis, Levi would be the one to know that we might have had sex. No, Levi was going to think that we definitely did, what with having the weekend off and Jeanine being the one to buy the damn things. "It's bad enough my parents are expecting us to be having sex right now, but now Levi knows?"

  
"Dude, relax. People have sex all the time, it's not that strange." Jeanine leaned back against my bed frame, pulling out snacks from her bag as well. "We haven't had sex in a while either, I don't want to let everyone down."

  
I shot her a look that was supposed to be threatening, but she just ended up laughing at me about it. Her hands shifted through the stack of games until she came across a cute looking game that I wasn't familiar with. She popped the case open and reached over to my Wii and placed the disc in the disc tray. The words "Rhythm Heaven Fever" bounced up on the screen, followed by a bunch of crazy but cute looking characters. I raised an eyebrow. "What in the hell is this?"

  
"It's fun as shit. Armin actually talked me into buying it the last time we hung out." Jeanine handed me a controller, giving me a quick kiss when she did. She stayed close to my face, a sly look coming over her. "I say whoever wins gets oral."

  
My face flushed red as I gripped onto the controller, her body going back against the bed frame, and pulling up a game for us to play.

* * *

  
Neither of us kept track of who was winning or losing because from the looks of it, there wasn't much winning going on. We had fallen into a mess of laughter in the middle of one of my rounds with me being embarrassingly unable to time the game right and getting my avatar to go through ridiculous losing animations. Jeanine was laughing so hard that she had just gone silent, her hands wrapped around her stomach and her head against her knee.

  
My cheeks hurt so badly from the large smile on my face, my hands going weak as I tried miserably to get back into the timing of things, only to fuck up even worse than the previous try. I had one more shot left and I accidentally hit the button just as it started, causing Jeanine and I to both lose our shit all over again. The controller slipped out of my weak grasp, my body rolling over as the laughing rippled through me.

  
I couldn't breathe, my sides were in pain and there were tears in my eyes from how horrible I had done. Jeanine went to take in a deep breath and ended up snorting, making herself laugh even harder. Eventually, I was able to gather enough strength to take in a deep breath, my stomach filling with relief as I wiped the tears from my eyes.

  
"Oh my god..." I huffed out, Jeanine sitting up straight and throwing her head back. She brought her hands away from her face and tried for a second time to take in a deep breath, finally able to calm down.

  
"I owe Armin _so_ much for this. " She turned to look at me, both of us fighting another outburst of laughter when our eyes met.

  
"I think we should take a break." I suggested, turning towards my tv and hitting the power button. Jeanine nodded in agreement, her eyes on me when I settled back into my spot. A comfortable silence settled in between us as I turned my gaze to look at her.

  
I missed her long hair, I really did, but I would be a liar if I didn't say she looked happier with her new haircut. Maybe it was because I could actually see her face now, but the edges of her sharp eyes were filled with a sort of ease that I never saw her wear before. Her smiles felt more genuine and her laughs were even more real. How she looked in this moment reminded me of how happy she had been walking around in her cosplay.

  
My train of thought was interrupted when Jeanine's lips pressed into mine, flickering off of mine like the last weak embers of a flame. I closed my eyes as she pulled me in with a remarkable amount of passion. Time swirled by as our clothes came off, my hands fumbling around for the stupid box of condoms she bought while our lips were still connected. I broke our connection so that I could actually look around for the box, my eyes searching wildly for them.

  
Jeanine sat up from the floor, looking at me as I moved around blindly in search for that stupid fucking box of condoms. I probably came off way more relieved than I should've when I finally found them, tearing the package open and pulling one out, hearing Jeanine laughing at me from over my shoulder. "Oh shut up," I spat out, turning back to her and connecting our lips together again. I pushed her back towards the floor as my hands worked on getting the stupid piece of rubber around me. Her arms wrapped around my neck, pulling me closer towards her as I gently pushed into her. She broke our kiss, her eyes flickering open and staring at mine as she let out a hot breath against my skin.

  
She had that panic look in them again. That same panic that ran through them every time I kissed her. That panic that she just wouldn't tell me about. Was I hurting her? Was I doing something that I shouldn't be? Why the hell did she look so panicked? What was I doing to her?

  
"Marco, I think I'm a boy."


	3. Trust

"Sir, I'm sorry but you can't use that cou-"

  
"It's _not_ expired, and I got what it says, you're being ridiculous!"

  
"-Sir, we don't take those coupons-"

  
"Why not!? It says _right here_ that it's valid now through the third of August!"

  
"Because this is a 7/11, not a CVS." I wasn't trying to come off like an asshole, but I had been bickering with this customer back and forth for the better half of twenty minutes. It was a coupon for _seventy fucking cents_ off of some chips. As I'm sure you figured out, it was a coupon for CVS, so it should be pretty fucking _obvious_ that he couldn't use it here, but this customer had some kind of rule book that wasn't shared with the rest of us apparently, because he was determined to use it.

  
I would've just given him the goddamn coupon too if we had a way to, but I had no way to do that and like hell was I sacrificing seventy lousy cents so that this asshole would come back in here and pull the same shit again on someone else. (Although if it were Jeanine that handled him, I'm sure it would've been over in less than a few minutes.)

  
I should also add that I wasn't in a good mood either and not used to the overnight schedule I suddenly got shifted to. I had a massive headache from the lack of sleep, and what felt like a thick cloud around my head. On top of all that, Levi was watching us from over the coffee area, struggling desperately to keep his chuckles from the exchange to himself. _Fuck you Levi, I see you laughing at my misery, what a great boss you are right now._

  
"Are you trying to tell me I don't know where I'm standing?" I watched spit fly from the mans mouth, landing on the counter. _Patience Marco, Patience._ He was a big burly man, like a fat lumber jack that took his role of 'being a man' too serious his whole life and wound up in a run down apartment by himself. I felt a vein somewhere in me ready to pop out of my skull from how fed up I was with this man and _god dammit Levi it's not that funny!_ "This is ridiculous, where's your manager?"

  
I closed my eyes for a moment, taking in a breath and then turning my head towards Levi, giving a bit of a sadistic smile as I saw his giggling fits come to an end and him groan at the words that came from the man's mouth. The shorter male set the rag down on the counter by the coffee pots and grudgingly walked over to the counter, but was stopped short by the customer.

  
"Are you the manager? I've got some things to say." He spat.

  
"Okay, gross." Levi mouthed, his lip curling up in disgust at the spit that came from the mans mouth. "You appear to be fuming sir, what can I help you with?" The words sounded smooth and professional but god damn did they have a bite to them. Somehow the customer just didn't seem to comprehend the insult and instead went into a spiral of complaints about whatever it was that I wronged him on. Levi didn't say a word as the customer spewed every made up insult he quoted me on up until he just didn't have anything left to say. Levi picked the coupon off of the counter and looked over it. "Sir, could you please tell me what store you're standing in?"

  
"Excuse me?"

  
"Just humor me and inform me where you're standing."

  
"It's a 7/11, what the fuck does that have to do with-"

  
"Now could you humor me again and read the company this coupon belongs to?" Levi handed him back the coupon to which the guys face went red. He looked at the words and his whole demeanor changed. He knew he was wrong, but he still wasn't going to admit it. He shot the two of us deadly glares and threw his supplies down on the counter before turning and heading towards the door, spitting out a "'fuckin' snobs" under his breath.

  
"Sir you forgot your coupon!" Levi hollered after him, and again, as smooth as his words sounded, it was painstakingly obvious he said it for his own self indulgence. The man didn't even acknowledge it as he stormed out of the store. I rolled my eyes and looked over at Levi as he crumpled the coupon and tossed it in the trash. "What a winner that guy was." He turned to look at me, watching as I rubbed at my forehead, a look of irritation clear as day on my freckled face. He went quiet, raising an eyebrow. "You doing alright?"

  
I let out a heavy sigh that honestly came out as more of a groan before crossing my arms over my chest. "Yeah, yeah."

  
"Is it the over nights?" Levi asked.

  
"No, no I like them so far. I mean it's hard on my body getting used to the schedule, but I like them." It probably didn't sound like I was being honest, because the look I got from him was one that made me question my self. I did like the over nights. There were a lot less people that came in, and the ones that did were usually overnight workers themselves and had somewhere to be so they were in and out pretty quickly. I got to focus on most of the tedious tasks that Levi had us assigned to, and it was nice not being interrupted from it every other second only to lose track of it at some point.

  
Levi twisted his body against the counter, leaning his back against it as he examined me. "Family doing alright?"

  
"Yes, my family's fine." I huffed, trying to find something to do to avoid Levi's questioning.

  
He was quiet for a moment watching me fidget around. He knew what the problem was, it was clear as day on his face that he knew. As much as he was acting like he didn't have a clue, he knew exactly what was bothering me to the point that I was actually acting like kind of a dick to our customers. (Look that interaction qualifies as being a dick in the Marco book, alright?) "It's Jeanine, isn't it?"

  
Her name split through my nerves like a blade, making my heart twist. I stopped the fidgeting and focused my eyes on the floor noticing that it had already been mopped so I couldn't even use that as an excuse to leave. I didn't want to tell him anything that had happened, but at the same time I need some kind of _guidance_ from the fog that my mind had settled in. All the confusion and anger on top of hurt and sadness, I wanted someone to tell me what it was that I was supposed to be feeling right now.

  
Spilling that all to my boss seemed a little ridiculous. I scratched the back of my neck and shrugged. "Yeah... Yeah it is," I breathed.

  
"..." Levi took in a breath, crossing his foot over the other. "She's been pretty out of it since you guys took that weekend off. Rather distant, really."

  
I pursed my lips, my heart skipping at the thought of her looking like that. I got put on over nights after that weekend, and Jeanine was switched to the day shift, which meant I saw her when I came in but she would usually be leaving around then. It was clear to everyone that there was an awkward air between us. I tried to get rid of it and talk to her, but she didn't want to hear anything I had to say. I guess I wouldn't either after what came out of my mouth, but how could she let this go on for so long now? It had been almost a week now.

 

Levi pulled me out of my thought process. "You two alright? Did you guys have a big fight over something?"

  
"No.. I mean, yes, we fought, but.. No.. I don't know." I ran my hand through my hair, frustrated. I shouldn't be talking to Levi about this. I should talking to Bertholdt, or Krista, or, you know, someone that is actually one of my friends and not my boss. His dark eyes watched me, before looking around at the store. He turned back to me and raised an eyebrow. "So who fucked up?"

  
I pulled my head out of my hands, turning my eyes to face him and in one deep breath I made the decision to spill everything to him.

  
Why I decided to tell him, I'm not exactly sure. Part of it was probably because I really was that desperate for advice, and part was because I was bursting at the seams to get this out of my brain.

  
I told him from the beginning, starting from the great time we had been playing video games and laughing over stupid shit and how _yes_ we had sex, and _yeah I know you already knew that_ , and then the words that dripped off of Jeanine's lips, the words that brought out these feelings in me that I wasn't sure I had been capable of feeling. I couldn't stop myself from talking once I had started, the flashes of just _betrayal_ scaring itself into Jeanine's features. I didn't mean to say what I said then, but in the back of my mind, I know that those words came out of my mouth because I meant them. I meant what I said and no matter how she tried to explain it, I just didn't _understand_.

  
 _"What're you talking about Jeanine?"_

  
_"A boy, Marco, I think I'm a boy."_

  
My brain skips the memory of Jeanine clarifying what she meant by that. It skips the gleam in her eye as she tells me that she never felt more comfortable in her skin before until she realized what she was doing was _wrong._ And God if that didn't just confuse me more. She kept going on about how she was going to start acting the way that felt right to her. She talked about getting more binders, saving up for clothes that felt _right_ on her and I- I just-

  
 _"Jeanine, stop. You're a girl, you look fine in the clothes you have-"_

  
_"But Marco I don't FEEL fine! I want to be like you, and like Eren, and I want to fit in and not feel so out of place. Ever since that convention, It just felt so fuckin' natural, Marco. That's what I'm supposed to be, that person is who I've been looking for all this time. I should've been a boy-"_

  
_"But you're not. You're not a boy, Jeanine, you can't just change that!"_

  
_"People do it all the time, Marco! And if I work enough hours, I could save up and maybe even start treatment-"_

  
_"Treatment?!"_

  
It was because I was confused, that's what I told myself. That's why I said what I did. I blocked all her words out and this _child_ came out instead.

  
 _"Marco, please! I-I thought you would be supportive of this.."_

  
_"How am I supposed to be supportive over you destroying yourself? Why can't you just be happy with what you have, Jeanine?"_

  
She fell silent then. Her words stuck in a lump in her throat and all of the trust that she had in me was sitting in her hands, debating on making the decision to take it away from me.

  
 _"....I thought.. You said before if I turned..into a-"_

  
_"That was hypothetically! I don't want you to dress like a boy, I like you how you are. If you changed..I don't... Jeanine, I don't want to be dating a transvestite, that's just.. Gross."_

  
Her decision was to take all the trust she had in me and hide it away. When the words left my lips, I could hear the shattering of her happiness along with what we were dissolving into nothing in just a mere few seconds. My gut twisted to the own venom in my words, feeling like I had just said the most disgusting thing a human could.

  
I regretted it. I regretted saying it so much, but once the words were out there, the damage was already done. She got dressed and left, not even bothering to pack her things. I tried to call her and all I got was her voicemail and a text message back from her that said she 'needed her own space right now.'

  
I found my head buried in my hands once again, my mouth coming to a halt after spilling my guts. I felt sick to my stomach all over again, and the one thing I wanted more than anything in the world right now was to run up to Jeanine and pull her in a hug, kiss her, tell her I'm sorry, but no matter how sorry I was, I didn't want her to _change._

  
Levi was quiet. He didn't say anything, and his features didn't give anything away as to what he was feeling either. I pulled my hands away from my head and looked up at him. Please tell me something. Please give me some kind of help. Please don't just stand there and look at me like that.  
His eyes skirted away from me, looking off to the side like he was in deep thought. He let out a breath of air and pushed himself away from the counter, heading towards the office area and leaving me there feeling like an idiot.

  
I felt worse than I did before I said anything to him. Why did I even bother? Why didn't I just wait and talk to Bertholdt about it? Even if he didn't agree with me, or with Jeanine, he'd still say _something_. God, what did I just do? What impression did I just leave on the guy who holds my job in his hands? I took a moment to try and compose myself, trying not to let myself check the time and calculate how many more hours I had left of this now awkward shift.

  
Now that I thought about it, I just spilled all of Jeanine's secrets to her boss too. They weren't even minor secrets either, Levi could turn around and fire her for what I said because he didn't like it. How did I just let all of that out without thinking it over?

  
Before I got out from behind the counter, Levi reappeared from the back with an arm full of _books_ and not just any books but his school books. He dropped them all over the counter, letting out a huff and then turning to me, kicking up a plastic crate and nodding down at it. "Sit."

  
"What...?" I asked. My mind had taken on enough brutality from confusion as it was, I didn't need this as well.

  
Levi took a seat on one of the crates, a thick biology book in his hands. He cracked it open and started skimming through it. "Sit. You're going to learn some things tonight because you are a poor poor uneducated sap."

  
I looked around at the store, questioning how important it must've been for Levi to want to neglect doing all his overnight tasks. Reluctant to, I took a seat on the empty crate next to him and glanced over at the book he had cracked open. It was opened to some page that had a lot of diagrams on it, all being about genitals apparently. I felt pretty uncomfortable pretty fast.

  
"And, You're the one that fucked up by the way." Levi added in as he pointed down to a bunch of medical terms and immediately began plowing through information to me.

* * *

 

We spent pretty much the whole night going through his medical books. He explained a _lot_ of information to me. A lot that I wasn't really sure what to do with. I learned way more about the female body than I really cared to know, and he went over stuff about the male body too. It wasn't until he pulled open a book and plopped a chart down in front of me that I started to understand what the point of all of this information was about. It was a weird and simple chart that honestly looked like a picture of a vagina being slowly turned into a penis in six pictures. I raised an eyebrow to Levi and listened as he explained to me how the chart was used. As he went on about the difference between 'sex' and 'gender' I found a lot of pieces in my brain coming together, and the fog that filled my mind was slowly lifting.

  
The sickness that sat in my stomach was still there, but at least I felt sick about the right thing.

  
I wronged Jeanine, and I did it selfishly. I didn't attempt to be there for her, or support her for my own selfish desire of a picture perfect family that I wanted with her. Even if.. She did become a 'he', it wasn't like she would become an entirely different person-

  
No, that's not true. She would.

  
She'd become happy. A happy person.

  
"I don't know how to deal with this.." I interrupted. Levi didn't seem to care because he closed the book he had been reading from and set it on top of the rest of the pile. He looked over at me, but I couldn't quite read the emotion that was on his face. "What's the right thing I'm supposed to be doing here? Is it really bad of me to want to talk Jeanine out of it?"

  
"I don't think 'bad' is really the right word for that." Levi scratched at his undercut, looking off to the side. "People don't tend to like change when it's something they're comfortable with. You can't deny Jeanine their happiness for your own, but you don't deserve to be unhappy because of it."

  
"What uh..." I licked my lips, trying to get the words out right. "If it were you, I mean.. Do you know what you would do?"

  
"..." Levi didn't move much, just shrugged his shoulder and stood up from his spot on the crate. "I'd let Jeanine do whatever they want to. It's their body, their life, I shouldn't have a say in it."

  
The pieces all snapped into place with his words, understanding what I was supposed to do. I didn't like the idea of it, but Levi was right in everything he had said, and all the information he spewed out just to help me get there, I couldn't just throw it all away.

  
In a way, I'm really glad I decided to spill my guts to him. The straight forward attitude and honest opinions he had helped me out more than I really understood at the moment. I probably should've thanked him, but the words never crossed my mind.

  
His eyes turned towards the parking lot when a pair of headlights filled the store and he immediately dipped down and out of view, dropping to the floor like a kid playing hide and seek. I looked down at him, my eyebrows scrunched together in confusion as he tried to push himself underneath the counter. "I am not here, I'm sick, I have food poisoning, diarrhea, the flu, cancer, _whatever._ " He snapped at me, his voice in a low whisper.

  
The ringing of the bell chimed through the store and my eyes immediately went to focus on what I was expecting to be a freak, but, well, they didn't look like it at all. It was a small tiny lady who looked to be around her early twenties, her hair a thick and vibrant orange color and the warmest smile on her face that I had ever seen on a customer that came in here. She had a styrofoam cup in her hand, a bit of steam seeping out of it as she stepped inside. Her hazel eyes swept over the store, the smile fading from her lips just a bit as she approached the counter.  
"Hi, um.. Is Levi not in...?" She questioned, her voice just as angelic sounding as her face.

  
"Uh," I tried really hard not to let my eyes dart down to the man that was hiding out just by my legs, but I couldn't help but quickly glance down at him wondering why in the hell he was trying to avoid this girl. Was she a stalker or something? "N-No, I'm sorry, he's not in right now. " I quickly recovered, watching the look of suspicion erupt on her face.

  
She looked around the store again like she'd spot him and then set the drink down on the counter. "Aw, that's too bad.. I brought some tea for him. Maybe you could give it to him when you see him?"

  
"Oh yeah sure, of course." I offered her a smile as she reached in her pocket and pulled out a ripped piece of paper.

"And um.. If you could..I don't know maybe he lost it last time I gave it to him, I just want to make sure he gets this.." She slipped me the piece of paper, trying to hide a faint blush that was on her cheeks. "I'd give it to him myself, but he hasn't been around the past few nights it seems." I looked down at the slip of paper and bit my lip, recognizing it as her phone number, the name "Petra" scribbled above the digits. She even went and put her area code in it and a cute looking smiley face next to her name. I set the paper on top of the cup of tea and looked back up to her. Petra looked suddenly worried for a moment. "Um, I know you're not supposed to give out this information, but Levi's okay, right?"

  
"Oh, Sure ah," I tried again not to look down at him. I forced my eyes to look over at the rag Levi had abandoned by the coffee area.

  
"Is he sick? I could always get him some tea leaves together to help with his sinuses if it's that or if his stomachs-"

  
"-Diarrhea." I felt Levi pinch my calf after spitting that out. _You're the one that said it, don't get mad at me._ "He's got really bad diarrhea."

  
"Oh." Petra brought a hand to her mouth, stifling a laugh. "Well, ah, maybe I should bring him some Chamomile next time or something from the shop." She mumbled to herself more than to me. Her hazel eyes shot up to lock with mine and she smiled. "I'm sorry, I haven't seen you here before, you must be new?"

  
"Ah yeah pretty much. Little over a month or so now."

  
We exchanged a brief conversation before she took a glance at the clock and decided that she really needed to get to work or her regulars would have her head. I watched her leave, the chiming of the doorbell making Levi stir from his position. Her large truck was backed out of the parking lot with ease and in another minute she was gone. Levi straightened himself out and then looked down at the cup of tea, the slip of paper faced up with her number facing him.

  
I cocked an eyebrow at him, wondering what the hell all of that was about, but I honestly couldn't really find the energy to care. "Was she uh, like a stalker or something?" I asked, just for the sake of conversation.

  
Levi scoffed. "No, not at all." I noticed that Levi's name was written on the side of the cup, and the dot over the 'i' had been changed to a heart. Levi seemed to notice too, because there was a faint hint of a blush on his cheeks as he looked it over. "She owns a coffee shop just around the corner. Well, I mean, she turned her house into a coffee shop after her grandmother passed away. It's her and her dad that run it, and I used to go there a lot when I first started school." He picked up the cup and pulled the lid off, taking a testing sip of it. "Once I started working here, I stopped going and she just happened to stop in here one time while I was working. She's been bringing me teas just before she gets to work on opening the shop up ever since she found out I worked here."

  
"Ah." I hummed, most of the information passing through my brain. I had taken in enough knowledge today, facts about this Petra really didn't get a place in my brain right now. I quickly excused myself from any more talk by deciding to clean up around the shelves even though we hadn't had enough customers to really let it be as time consuming as I made it.

* * *

 

I tried numerous times to contact Jeanine the next day, but she wasn't responding to me. I blew up her phone before I realized she might've had it off due to being at work. I hopped on my laptop and went onto Skype in hopes of getting a message to her that way. I typed out a long message about how I really wanted to talk to her and to get on a better page with her, but after a few days and no response (even when I saw her online one night) I decided to scan her Facebook.

  
I wish it was the first thing that I did, because it would've put everything into a better perspective had I checked on that first.  
Every one of her pictures had been deleted. Anything that she had put up herself was gone. Any picture she was tagged in had been untagged and no longer linked to her albums. I felt my throat swell up as I shifted through her page, looking at the links and messages people left for her.  
Armin had tagged her in a post with a picture of him holding up some video game I wasn't familiar with and the caption "GUESS WHO WON'T BE GOING OUTSIDE FOR A WHILE" on it. Connie had a bunch of Facebook tag games posted all over her page (some that I was a part of as well) but the one person I noticed coming up a lot was Eren. He had a bunch of shared pictures that said things like "Me vs You" where the 'you' picture would be something bland and ugly and the 'me' part was outrageously smooth and pretty looking. There were some other pictures of cartoon captions from shows and vine videos as well. I scrolled up to the top of her feed and watched as something new popped up, a message from Eren that he posted on her wall.

  
Eren> hey man whats been up with you?? You're not responding to me now?? Am I not good enough for conversation??

  
There was the hint of being playful behind his words, but it made my heart twist. She was blocking everyone out over something I said. I let out a sigh as I looked over at her profile picture, a picture that had once had her in it, but had now been cropped to feature Eren, Armin and Connie all with their arms around each other's necks. Jeanine had been on Connie's side, and I'm pretty sure Sasha or maybe Mikasa had been in the picture too, but it didn't show them.

  
I looked back at the post Eren made and saw that Bertholdt and Sasha had both liked it. A second later Sasha made a comment on it.

  
Sasha> Work was so weird today u were so quiet!!

  
Her comment earned a like from Connie and Eren. I stared blankly at it, wondering if anyone else would say anything. I really hurt her. I really did.

  
Then, my heart stopped as another comment came up, from Jeanine herself.

  
Jeanine> im fine also jaeger u were never good enough for conversation

  
Her post blew up with comments then.

  
Sasha> AHH SHE LIVES!!

  
Eren> Pfft! Well fuck you too Kirschstein!

  
Eren> Really though reply to my texts!

  
Sasha>Don't go quiet again

  
Sasha> Oooh Eren what're u trying to be sneaky about huh???

  
Sasha> Is this something Marco needs to know about??

  
Eren> @Sasha Marco can see all of this, what good are you?

  
Connie> Lets be real, if Jeanine wanted a side man it'd totally be ME

  
Sasha> Aww! I wanna be Jeanine's side man!!

  
Sasha> @Jeanine Let's make Marco share!

 

I was getting ready to close out the facebook tab when a private messenger popped up.

It was from Bertholdt.

  
Bertholdt: What's everyone talking about? Are you two alright?

  
I stared at the words for a while, not really able to put my thoughts together enough to form a coherent sentence.

  
Marco: I don't know.

  
Marco: I don't think so.

  
The words "Bertholdt is typing" went on and off as I waited for his response. He took his time figuring out what he wanted to say.

  
Bertholdt: Is there anything I can do to help?

  
Bertholdt: I don't work today if you wanted to talk at all.

  
I pondered over the opportunity, but decided against it after the long out of book lesson I received from Levi when I told him. Not to mention, I shouldn't really be running my mouth over problems that involved something so personal to Jeanine. If she wanted to tell people, she could. I shouldn't be the one to say it.

  
Marco: I just need to talk to Jeanine honestly. Thanks for the offer tho

  
Bertholdt: Alright don't hesitate to call

  
Bertholdt: I mean it

  
Bertholdt: I'm willing to put listening to Reiner yelling at 12 year olds on Call of Duty on hold.

  
I let out a chuckle, but I didn't bother responding. I closed out Facebook and opened a new tab. I stared at the blank url bar, chewing on my lip. Before I really knew it, I had started typing my thoughts out into the URL bar.

  
 _How to deal with girlfriend wanting to be a guy_

  
I wasn't sure what I was expecting to find, but I scoffed and rolled my eyes at the results. They were titles of questions that said things like "How do I deal with my girlfriend getting attention from other guys" and "How do I deal with my girlfriend having guy friends."

  
 _This isn't what I wanted, Google._

  
I decided on re-wording my thoughts.

  
 _Girlfriend wants to be a boy_

  
I clicked enter and got the kind of titles that I was hoping for the first time around. I clicked the first link, skimming through a background relationship story and going through the replies, reading what advice people had to give this guy. Most of it didn't really seem to help much, but I wasn't really sure what I was looking for in the first place. I knew what I said to her was wrong, fuck it was _really_ wrong. What was diving around on google going to do for me?

  
I guess I was just looking for the right way to apologize to her. I wasn't sure if she was even going to give me a chance for an apology, but if she did, I knew I'd have one chance at it. I wanted it to be the best I could give to her, and in a way, looking at advice on google was the best information I would be getting on it.

  
I let out a sigh and closed out the tab, deciding that now wouldn't really be the best time for it. I was in a sort of panic daze, where all I wanted was for someone to drop out from the sky and throw all the answers at me. In my head, it made sense what I was supposed to do, but after I went through that process, what next? There was always the what if in which Jeanine tried out all of these new things, like binding herself and re-styling herself to be like a boy and she decided she didn't like it. Or maybe she decided to sit somewhere in between and only be a boy sometimes. That I could deal with no problem.

  
The idea of her being a boy permanently though? Where do I sit in that equation? Am I just going to become her best friend after that? What if I fade out of her life and everything we had up until then just becomes a memory?

  
So many questions ran through my head, I couldn't make sense of much of it. I felt like I had wronged her for being so closed off about her confession, but I felt like she had wronged me by not preparing me for this.

  
If I had been smart about it, I probably could've seen this coming. I recognized her panic looks all the time, and the way her whole being glowed at that convention, but I never made the connection.

  
God all I wanted right now was to have her here with me and talk to her, but she just wasn't having any of me right now. I know she said she needed her space but I wanted her to understand that I had my arms out in comfort and she didn't need to think that there might be thorns buried in them.

  
My eyes went back to the computer and pulled open Facebook again. It would be a pretty shitty thing to do but if it meant getting a response out Jeanine, then I'd do it. I had to let her know I was sorry somehow.

  
I found myself looking back at the post Eren had made on her wall, scrolling past the extra comments that had been left on there, and thinking over the words in my head as I chewed at my lips. I stared up at her profile picture before going to add a post onto her profile.

  
Marco > Did you want me to clear up my albums?

  
I read the simple question over and over again in my head. It was pretty vague, but I was sure that Jeanine would understand what it was I was talking about. I danced my fingers along the plastic casing on my keyboard before finally throwing my finger at the enter key and watching it post to her wall feed.

  
My heart was thumping hard in my chest and my hands were getting sweaty from nervousness. I wasn't really sure what I was so nervous about, it wasn't like Jeanine and I were breaking up or anything. I didn't think that at least. I hoped not.

  
A wave of heat ran through my body as I pictured what it would be like without Jeanine to talk to. If I didn't have her to hang out with, or chat with, or just be a total dork with, what the hell did I have? Was I just supposed to go back to hanging out with Bertholdt, Sasha and Connie all the time again? Would I even be able to with how close Jeanine had gotten to all of them? What did any of this mean and why couldn't I get Jeanine to talk to me?

  
I looked back to the post and saw some comments that had been posted.

  
Eren> You guys ARE okay, right?

  
Connie> Whoa, whoa, what're you clearing your albums for??? DO WE NEED TO HAVE A FRIEND ASSAULT?

  
His comment had received likes from Sasha and Armin.

  
Armin> I think it might have something to do with Jeanine's picture clear up, maybe?

  
Sasha> @Marco @Jeanine Guys?

  
Bertholdt> Not that posting on a public feed is getting much privacy, but I don't really think what's happening between them is any of our business, and you guys shouldn't be bothering Jeanine so much about it. I'm sure she would've said something if she wanted to share it, maybe tone it down on the badgering?

  
I let out a sigh, feeling like Bertholdt had part of that directed at me, more so than at the rest of them. He immediately received a like from Annie and Armin, and probably would've gotten one from Reiner if the blond wasn't off playing video games. (There would definitely be one from him by tomorrow.)

  
Eren> Badgering? We just want to make sure they're okay

  
Two likes from Connie and Sasha.

  
Bertholdt> I'm sure they are. If they're not, constant reminders on Facebook from everyone isn't really comforting, you know?

  
I rubbed my eyes before deciding to stop the bickering that was soon to erupt between Eren and Bertholdt, and who ever else would jump in on it.

Time to throw on the fake internet charm.

  
Marco> We're fine guys!! Sorry! I wasn't trying to worry anyone, Jeanine's just making some changes to her Facebook, I just wanted to know if she wanted me to be a part of those changes or not.

  
The words hurt a lot more than they should've. They were completely innocent and honest from their perspective, but god was it a question that I really needed answered.

  
Connie> WELL YOU TOOK YOUR TIME TELLING US!

  
Eren> What changes?? Should we do it too?

  
I let out a huff of air, turning away from my computer after setting it to sleep. I moved away from my desk and stared over at the bag full of video games and snacks that Jeanine abandoned. She wanted her privacy, I should respect that, but the least she could do was give me some kind of response on where we stood. It'd been over a week now, I deserved some kind of response, didn't I?

* * *

 

Almost an entire week passed until I finally heard something back from Jeanine. It was a Tuesday, and my first day off since last Thursday. I didn't see her at all going into work, and I never got any responses to any of the messages I left for her anywhere. As far as life was concerned, she had just dropped off the face of the planet. I don't think I ever felt lonelier in my life.

  
Bertholdt had been making a very big attempt at getting me to come over his house, but after getting turned down so many times, he finally gave up. Even his encouraging text messages had ceased after a while.

  
I was lying in my bed with my pillow over my face, waiting for the guilt I felt to tear me a part from the inside when I heard my mother's voice from outside my door. She was talking to someone, and I didn't think much of it until what she was saying had me jump up straight.

  
"Oh we haven't seen you around at all lately, it's so nice to see your face again." She cooed the words like a proud mom speaking highly of their child. "Marco's in his room, I'm sure he'll be happy to see you."

  
My heart race sped up as I listened to a pair of footsteps approaching my door. I threw the blankets off of my legs and headed for the door, grabbing the knob and yanking it open. My breath caught in my throat when my eyes locked onto hazel ones. I felt like I could cry.

  
Jeanine looked like she had been crying.

  
She didn't look happy to see me, which sent a sharp stab to my chest. She stared at me for a moment before shrugging her shoulders. "I just came by for my stuff.." She breathed out.

  
Without looking at me, she pushed past my body and went for her bag. Jeanine began skimming through it, more than likely checking to make sure everything was in there.

  
I had so much to say to her, but I couldn't find my voice when I looked at how torn up she looked. She was in so much pain and I wasn't there for her. I didn't get to hold her and tell her it'd be alright when she went to her dark place. How long had she been suffering through those thoughts, I wondered.

  
"Jeanine..."

  
"Marco, Please." She snapped, zipping up her bag. "I just came for my things."

  
"Can't you at least respond to me..?" I breathed.

  
She took in a breath, her fingers playing with the metal teeth of her zipper. "I don't have anything to say to you, Marco..."

  
I don't think I ever felt my heart hurt as much as it did with those words. That's not how I wanted this to be. That's not how I wanted her to ever feel towards me. I wanted Jeanine to be able to tell me anything. "Could you..let me talk then?"

  
"You mean the Facebook posting, Skype messaging, and _constant_ phone spamming isn't enough for you?" She snapped, standing up with her bag in hand.

  
"..." My eyes feel to the ground.

  
"I'm changing my number after this. I'm starting completely over," She took in a breath, her eyes falling to the ground. "I've been doing a lot of research, and- and a lot of math and it all just makes sense and it's completely doable, clearing my plate and starting new, that's it, that's all I gotta do." Her pitch shot up an octave, her eyes taking a glossy look. "I got some better binders, and I got a new outfit, and I'm-I'm gonna fucking do it, alright?" Jeanine brought her hand to her face, wiping at her eyes while looking off to the side, like she was mad at herself for crying. Her lips started quivering, and the only thing I wanted to do was to take her to my bed and hold her.

  
"I...I read you weren't supposed to wear them for more than 12 hours a day...." Her eyes came towards me slowly, staring at me with suspicion. "Or.. You'll damage your breast tissue..." I shook my head and shrugged realizing it was pointless for me to say that. "You probably already knew that.."

  
The thump of her bag landing lightly on the floor brought my eyes towards her. "You.. You looked that up?" She asked.

  
I nodded. "Yeah," I rubbed the back of my neck. "I looked up a lot of things. I felt really bad-I _feel_ really bad about what I said. I don't even have an excuse for any of the things I said, I just.. Wasn't really prepared to hear that." I took in a breath, my heart skipping realizing that Jeanine was giving me a chance to speak. Don't blow it, Marco. Please don't blow it. "Look, I...I think you're really cute, Jeanine... and smart, and funny, and I like your hair a lot, and how pretty you look no matter what you're feeling, but none of that really matters if you don't feel that way about yourself. That's what's really important, you know...I just want you to be comfortable with yourself."

  
"...Marco," Jeanine breathed, her words like a summer day bursting in through a winter storm.

  
I didn't want to mess it up. I kicked my foot against the ground, curling my toes and rocking the knuckles against the carpeted floor. "I guess.. .That's all I really wanted to say. I want to be there for you through this, but...That's all up to you, I suppose.."

  
Her eyes stared at me like she was searching for some kind of catch twenty-two in my words. I didn't like that she was looking at me without fully trusting me. It was painful and the absolute last emotion I wanted her to feel towards me.

  
"I don't know if I can believe you or not..." She mumbled, sniffling and trying to keep her voice from shaking. "I want to.. Because God damn, am I scared.. I don't think I can do this by myself." She took the back of her wrist and wiped at her cheek. "I was planning on telling my parents first. After you, I mean. I've been trying to every day, and I just can't do it. I'm scared they'll react like you.."

  
Another knife to my chest.

  
I deserved it.

  
"I didn't think telling them would be a problem. I didn't think telling you would, but what you said... I mean, what if they act like that? I can't just block them out. I could end up being kicked out. Or-or worse they could try to put me through some kind of 'you're really a girl' therapy." Jeanine's breath hitched, sniffling again as she took her hand and wiped at her pursed lips.

  
"I'm sorry Jeanine..."

  
"Jean." She corrected. "I decided to go with Jean. Cutting off the feminine part to my name you, know?" It was like a completely different name. She pronounced it like John, so even with the similar spelling, Jeanine wasn't a part of her anymore.

  
"Jean..." I repeated. The name felt so foreign and unknown on my lips. I realized then that this is basically what it was. Jeanine was what I knew, and Jean, that's everything that I don't know.

  
The breakup that was hiding in the back of mind had already happened. Jeanine left. She was gone. We were done. I didn't get a say in, but who really got to have a say when anyone was being put to rest?

  
Comparing this to a funeral for Jeanine was dark, but I didn't have any other way to put it in my head. It was as if a horrible crash had happened and I was now standing here, recovering from the loss of her with a stranger who held a type of hope and promise for any kind of future.  
My head was swimming in questions and concerns, but I knew now wasn't the time to voice them. I brought my eyes up to lock onto Jeanin _-Jeans_ and bit my lip. "Um.. Your uh, outfit. Did you get any help on it?"

  
She huffed out a chuckle, a smile breaking out on her lips. It made my heart jump. "No.. I haven't told anyone else about this yet.. I don't really know how to."

  
"Could I help?"

  
Her eyes lingered on mine for a moment, hesitation lingering in them. "Marco, I don't know. Do you really expect me to forget what you sai-?"

  
"No-!" I started cutting her off before I had the chance to even gather my own words together. "I know I can't just apologize for it and everything be okay.. So I'm not going to.. But I do want to help you. And I'd like for you to help me as well." Jean looked at me with a question, pursing her lips. "I want you to help me love _you_. Not Jeanine, but _You_. Jean. Even if it's just as a frien-"

  
I was cut off when Jeanine threw her arms around me and pulled me into a hug. "Shut up," She breathed, burying her head into my shoulder. "Just shut up. I forgave you awhile ago, Marco." She pulled away and looked up at me. "I'm probably an idiot to forgive you so easily, but I was hurt that you wouldn't be in my life anymore because of what I said, and I honestly thought you really didn't want to." Jean let out a heavy breath and glanced back at her bag sitting on the floor. "I have to do this, Marco. And I could really.. Use some support, you know..."

  
"Yeah, yeah." I murmured. "Yeah, of course." My heart was ready to explode. The uncertainties and doubts in the back of my head could be put on hold for now. I wanted to be a part of her life, and I would deal with each problem as they came. I felt a smile fall on my lips. "You think I could see that outfit you got?"

  
The fact that she smiled back at me made the guilt I felt almost melt away. I didn't have to be driven crazy by the silence between us anymore. I was going to make it my personal goal to make sure that she never felt alone again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm super excited to get this chapter up, and not because I think it's good, but because I can't wait to write everything AFTER it now! This chapter was a struggle, and that's probably why it took me so long to get up. But, I'm trying to base each chapter from here on out on something specific-- like this one could probably fall under "Trust".  
> I'm also planning on each chapter being around 10,000 words, so hopefully that's not too long for anyone.  
> Also, I would like to thank LordoftheMarchine for offering to let me nag them for questions all the time, (even though I haven't yet, but I will, trust me.)  
> One last thing!  
> I would much appreciate a beta for this, because I know I have a hard time spotting my own errors, and I tend to disrupt the flow a bit in spots. So if anyone would like to do that, send me a message on either my tumblr or under the comments here, whichever works best c:


	4. Progress

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's just give a real big shout out to [LordoftheMachine ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LordoftheMachine) for beta'ing this chapter. I would also like to apologize for how long that it took to get this up here but I lost my desire to write for a minute.  
> Thank you to everyone that's read this and left feedback! It means a lot to me!

When I was in middle school, I had a horribly hard time with math. It wasn't always hard for me; I actually used to be really good at it. Math had been something I thought of as a "friendly subject" because it came rather easily to me up until middle school. I was even good enough to be thrown in the advanced class. I guess the main reason I was so good at it was because I actually _liked_ doing math.

  
It was sort of a pride thing, really.

  
I loved bringing my homework home and taking my filled out worksheet up to my mom for her to double check. She never needed to because it was always right; I made _sure_ it was right before she saw it. Still, my mom looked it over, smiled brightly down at me and handed it back to me with a hair tussle and "I'm proud of you, Marco."

  
It made me beam.

  
It made me love Math.

  
I fed off of her approval and the mouthfuls of compliments and kind gestures were worth whatever story problem I had to solve. Dad had always preached about math being the most important subject and mom always spoke so highly of me whenever it was brought up. I was her "smart little boy" and man did it fuel my greedy desire for her love.

  
I went from grade school to middle school and with that big move came the whirling holt to all of Mom's compliments. I don't really remember when it happened exactly, but Mom had stopped saying "Good job, sweetie," and "I'm proud of you," and instead started saying "Honey, can't you look over it yourself?" "Marco, I'm sure it's right, you're smart enough to check it yourself now." and "Sweetie, I'm a little busy right now."

  
It became a lot harder to want to understand the numbers in front of me after that. All of the pride I got out of solving the problems had been sucked out of me. I felt just as blank as most of my homework looked. I got behind a few assignments and soon found myself struggling to keep my grade above passing.

  
The teacher had even gone as far as to ask if I wanted to be transferred over to a lower math level, but for some stupid pride reason I said no. I tried pulling myself out of the ditch I fell in, and I had climbed pretty high, bringing my grade up to barely passing.

  
I got kicked right back into that ditch when I had to bring my report card home to my parents. It was a night full of all the "I'm disappointed in you" lectures, topped off with a "You're grounded until you bring this grade up," from my dad.

  
It left me feeling completely lost for a while in all honesty. The same numbers that had been so friendly to me back in elementary school were now making my life completely miserable. My mom was never proud of me, my dad thought that I wasn't going to be doing anything with my life if I couldn't learn math. It put me in a place covered in endless fog. It was hard to do anything anymore, and no matter how many times I pointed out the high grades in my other subjects Math was just this chain and ball that kept pulling me behind.

  
Things changed. For how hard I had been struggling with and dreading Math, I thought I'd never learn to like it again, but things changed.  
I met Bertholdt around that time.

  
Bertholdt had the third highest grade in our class, which would usually make him one of the most sought after tutors, but he also had about the same sense of presence as air.

  
Being completely honest, I didn't even know I had any classes with him at all until the teacher suggested I ask him for help. He was quiet and kept to himself. You could even go so far as to say that he might have been shy, but that just depends on your viewpoint I suppose.

  
After finally getting around to asking him for help, Bertholdt and I ended up hitting it off extremely well. Our personalities bounced off of each other all too well and we got close within the first couple of months of tutoring. I picked up a lot of qualities from him that most people probably would associate me with. He was really motivating and optimistic about things and it rubbed off on me pretty easily. He filled the prideful mom spot quickly and my grade slowly crawled its way back up from his help.

  
Eventually I learned to deal with the lack of compliments for finishing a homework assignment and I got over needing help from Bertholdt. He was already in too deep with me to just go back to being that one kid that has a name in our class roster, but I don't think I've ever seen him.

  
He became my best friend. He stayed that way all through high school and even now. Graduated, getting boring ass summer jobs, and preparing for our first semester of college.

  
So after all that, it shouldn't be a surprise to me when he showed up at my doorstep in his stupid red and green pizza delivery shirt and a frown on his face.

  
"I don't remember ordering any pizza." I teased. He rolled his eyes and then grabbed my wrist, dragging me out of the house. "Hey, hey!" I hollered, my bare feet scraping against the concrete of the walkway and nearly tripping into the grass.

  
"Get in the car, I'll get your shoes." He gave me a push forward towards his beat down excuse of a car and then headed back toward my house to retrieve some kind of footwear. Let's not forget to mention that I did not look anywhere near presentable for _whatever_ it was that he was planning on doing. My hair was all over the place, I was wearing an old grey hoodie and some Batman pajama pants that I didn't even really like all that much, but I somehow found myself sitting in his passenger seat, waiting for him to come out of my house.

  
Bertholdt pulled open the driver’s side door and plopped in his seat, tossing a pair of slip-ons at me. I rolled my eyes but slipped them on anyway, not liking the feeling of bare feet on car floor. He started his car up, throwing his seatbelt on and then clicking on the radio, a trancy tune filling up the background noise between us. I rolled my head to look at him, hands playing with the seat belt strapped across my chest. "I would've at least thrown on some kind of body spray if I knew I was stepping outside today."

  
"Oh shut up, I don't smell any better," Bertholdt commented, pulling part of his shirt away from him to point out to me he had just come from work.

 

"Alright, so what're two smelly guys on their way to?"

  
"Nothing," Bertholdt pulled away from my house and began driving out of my neighborhood, but I noticed he didn't take the way towards his house, "Just driving."

  
"Driving is what you dragged me out my house for?"

  
"Yes, because car talks are always the best talks."

  
"Car tal- What makes you think I need a car talk?"

  
Bertholdt spared me a glance, a smirk passing his lips, "The fact that you just assumed that it wasn't _me_ that needed a car talk."

  
"That doesn't make you right," I rolled my eyes, looking at the ground. I wanted to laugh at the fact that Bertholdt had grabbed me a pair of slippers and not even my actual shoes, "…Uh, did you need a car talk though?" I found myself asking.

  
"Well," Bertholdt let out a sigh, "Aside from Reiner's little brother finding Connie's pipe in our room and tattling and me having to take the fall for that, no, not really."

  
"That sounded like a lot of fun," I commented, a chuckle escaping my mouth at the pained expression Bertholdt had on his face.

  
"Man, Thomas is such a little shit," He groaned, "Like, I came downstairs on my way to work, and there's Reiner's parents staring at me all serious and his dad goes 'We need to talk' and I thought someone had died or something, but I couldn't figure out why they needed to tell _me_ about it, I mean, I'm not really a part of the family, so why do I need to know when someone dies?" Bertholdt paused for a moment to focus on changing lanes and then went right back into his story, "All of that is running through my head and then Thomas comes skipping down the stairs--and like I knew then that he had something to do with all of it. I could just _tell_ you know? So Reiner's mom sends Thomas outside and when she comes back, she's got Connie's pipe in her hand and you know, at that point I almost wished someone _had_ died."

  
"Jesus Bertholdt, that's messed up," I laughed, "What did they do though? Or what did you do?"

  
"I took the fuckin' blame for it, what do you think?"

  
"Why didn't you just say it was Connie's? They know who he is, they would've believed that."

  
Bertholdt shook his head. "No, no. See if I said _that_ then the next question would be 'Well what's _Connie's_ pot pipe doing in _your_ room?' and what am I supposed to say? 'Oh, when you guys were at work and Thomas was at school, they all passed it around and got high while playing scrabble.' Marco, they would fuckin' murder me if they found out Reiner smoked. I mean, I'm not their son, and with my 'tragic childhood' I'm allowed to spiral down the drug path and be a fuck up. _Reiner_ though? Dude, finding out he even had a taste of the shittiest beer on the planet is almost as bad to them as him—I dunno, coming out and saying he was gay."

  
"Drinking shitty beer is better than being a homosexual to his parents?" I questioned, cocking an eyebrow. Bertholdt let out a sigh. "I didn't think they were that bad."

  
"Yeah they weren't until Reiner got an athletic scholarship. And to be fair, they do have a point about the whole 'homos in sports' thing."

  
"Which is....?"

  
"Reiner would probably lose his scholarship if he was gay and decided to come out."

  
"Huh," How it made sense that working your ass off for almost 13 years of schooling to get a scholarship and to have it just yanked out of your hands over something as minor as sexuality was beyond me. The world sucked that way. "So I guess it's a good thing he's not gay then." I caught Bertholdt biting his lip, turning his head to the side as he focused on pulling into a parking lot. "...He's _not_ gay, right?"

  
"Well, I mean..." Bertholdt's voice cracked, trying to hold back laughter as he parked his car at the empty side of the lot. My eyes were on him, suspicion rising with each second he took to explain himself. "I don't want to say he is because that's not fair for me to assume that but uh, yeah."

  
"You think Reiner's gay?" I questioned.

  
Bertholdt nodded, "Maybe not gay, but definitely into guys."

  
I had to pause and collect my thoughts before turning back to Bertholdt. Reiner? _Gay?_ That's like, like saying…Shit, it's like saying Ymir was straight. "But…Reiner? I mean he's like…" I puffed out my chest and raised my shoulders, imitating the blond. "Big, tough, sporty McSports guy, grr!"

  
The dark skinned man next to me chuckled at my imitation as he undid his seatbelt and got comfortable in his seat. I didn't even bother to see what supermarket he drove us to because more likely than not, we wouldn't be leaving the car, "No, Marco, I'm serious. Reiner is so far in the closet, he's already saved Narnia and he's on his way to take his homo urges to Mordor."

 

"My God, that's a pretty bold statement you're making there," I cocked an eyebrow at him, trying to get him to explain himself.

  
He caught my look and shifted his body so that he was facing me, "Alright, so, you know how we share a room and what-not…."

  
Oh, right.

  
Now might actually be a good time to explain a bit about Bertholdt.

  
See, as I'm sure everyone's figured out, Bertholdt lives with Reiner and his family at their place. He's lived there for a couple of years now. Also, that reference he made about his 'tragic childhood'; that was sarcasm. It's just what everyone always told him when they found out he grew up in an orphanage, saying it like that was kind of his way of humoring himself through it. Bertholdt never considered himself as someone who had a bad past or tragic childhood, but he lost control of himself for a moment when the orphanage started talking about setting him up with a shared unit outside of the city so that they could make more room for the younger kids. It was a very _dangerous_ area to say the least. His breakdown led to Reiner guilt tripping his parents into letting Bertholdt stay with him, and that's how it'd been for the past few years now.

  
"Well, I asked him if I could borrow his laptop to look something up, I can't even remember what it was now. Probably just to get on Facebook, but you know how on chrome, you go to type something in the URL bar and it'll finish with a recent search?"

  
"Oh no.. Bertholdt you _snooped_?"

  
"Is it really snooping when Google kind of finishes your sentence for you after typing in one letter?"

  
"Did Google pull up his history for you too?"

  
"No, I did that myself."

  
" _Bertholdt!_ " I scolded before he busted into a laugh.

  
"I'm kidding, I'm kidding! I didn't go that far. I mean when you hit the 'F' key and 'feel like i might be gay' is what Google suggests to you, it kind of eliminates the need to go into the history.

  
"Was that really what it said?" God, I felt really guilty listening to him, but at the same time, I was getting eaten alive with curiosity. Reiner turning out to be gay was a large distraction from Jean wanting to be--- _I'm sorry_ \-- turning out to be a boy.

  
The thought of Jean's name instantly killed the slightly happy buzz I had going on and Bertholdt picked up on it immediately. He didn't answer my question, his eyes watching as my face dropped and my eyes fell into my lap.

  
Jean had pushed off coming out to her parents until next week when the two of us both had a day off. Things had been awkward between us ever since our makeup a few days ago. I got to help her out with picking out new clothes since the ones she got had been rather…Complimentary on her curves. When we went shopping, I had to keep sending her back with the clothes she picked out since they really didn't do what she was asking for. The pants she kept picking out were too small and way too tight and the only shirts she was interested in were just regular t-shirts.

After a lot of trial and error, we finally got an outfit that she liked and actually did what she wanted it to do--even if achieving that boy look came from wearing a flannel to cover up her girlish figure.

  
"So, uh," Bertholdt broke through my thoughts, pulling my attention back on the conversation we were having, "Yeah, that was pretty much my day."

  
I turned to look at him and forced a rather feeble smile. I couldn't think of anything to say to him and, being honest, I barely remembered the last thing he said. I found my eyes falling back into my lap again.

  
"....Marco…?" he breathed, his voice in a low whisper like he was trying to bring me into submitting my problems to him. He was good at doing that. Bertholdt was quiet for a moment, giving me a chance to speak. After I didn't say anything, his eyes skated away from my face. His hands gripped the steering wheel nervously while he softly exhaled. "...Is Jeanine okay?"

  
It was hard to keep from letting my facial expression to look too surprised. I felt myself wanting to correct him after all the conditioning Jean put me through over the past week. His green eyes looked back at me and he started fidgeting with the hem of his work shirt. I swallowed the lump in my throat. "Why do you think she's not okay?"

  
"Well..." he seemed stressed as he gathered his thoughts, "I mean, the whole Facebook thing. You said you two needed to talk and it seems like you did, but you don't seem fine, and Jeanine definitely doesn't seem fine either. She's deleted everything that's had anything to do with her online. Eren's been texting me all the time about asking you about it since he can't get anything out of her," Bertholdt bit his lip. "She's not...trying to kill herself is she?"

  
"What? No! Oh my God, no!" I fumbled, stopping Bertholdt's thought process. "Things are weird right now, but she is definitely not trying to do that."

  
His face didn't look any less worried, "You're...sure of it?"

  
"Yes, of course," I stated. I put on a smile for him, watching as his concern started to melt off his face, "It's just.... It's something that I shouldn't be talking about, alright? You know I would tell you in a heartbeat if anything happened, but this is more of Jean's problem. She should be the one to tell you."

  
Bertholdt's eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. "...Jean's...?" He repeated.

  
I wasn't sure how to respond to him, "...Um…." I started. He waited for a response from me, eyebrow raised at my reaction. I bit my lip and turned my head the other way. "Yeah…Jean."

  
He didn't ask anything more after that.

* * *

 

"Hun, are you going to have some time to eat dinner before you leave for work?" I turned away from my computer, looking at my mom as she poked her head in my room. Her hair sat in a messy bun on her head, strands of it poking out in all different directions. She must've been cooking at the moment since she had brought her wooden spoon with her and was currently licking some kind of cream sauce off of it. "I'm making Alfredo."

  
"Aw man," I groaned, knowing that it wouldn't be ready in time before I left for work. "Could you try to save me a plate?"

  
Her shoulders dropped like she didn't approve of my response. Mom's hands found her way to her hips, the spoon in her grasp hitting her shirt and getting sauce on it. "You're really not going to eat anything before going to work? Don't you have a long shift tonight?"

  
"I'll probably just eat something from there."

  
"Hot Pockets and chips are not a good dinner, Marco."

  
"Mom," I groaned, throwing my head back against my chair. She then pulled her hands away from her hips, getting some of the sauce from the spoon on her arm and cursing under her breath when she realized she got it on her shirt as well.

  
"Try to eat something else before you go into work, alright? I can make you a sandwich real quick-"

  
"Okay, okay! Just let me get ready," Mom gave me a look, but she finally turned away from my door and went back to cooking. I found my eyes on the clock again, dreading the 12 hour shift I had ahead of me.

  
Six pm to six am, I get to deal with the drunks and teenagers that had nothing else better to do. (Although who was I to talk? The only reason I knew Levi was because Jean and I hung out there all the time.) The only good thing about the shift was that I got to work with Levi. I learned right away that Levi was the better manager to work with, especially to _close_ with. I had to work a couple overnights with Oluo and it had to have been the most miserable shift I worked in a long time.

  
Now, I'm probably being a bit more critical than I should, but seriously the guy never shut up. Then, if you did engage in conversation, he would shoot down just about everything you said with some attempt at a witty comment.

  
Around other people I could probably manage him, but when it was just the two of us? God, it made it the longest shift of my life.

  
I headed out the door as my mom tried to chase me down about eating something before leaving. I know she was right and that I should've grabbed a bite to eat, but I really wasn't all that hungry. I was going to regret it in a couple of hours.

  
Heading into work, I could see Sasha's beat up pickup truck in the parking lot which meant either she or Connie were working. Levi had learned to never schedule them together after coming into their shift and seeing the place a wreck. Eren's silver Taurus was parked beside the truck, with Levi's old beat up Saturn next to it.

  
I slipped the green apron we used as uniforms on as I walked in the door, spotting Eren at the counter and Connie next to him, both struggling to refill one of the machines. Which one it was, I couldn't tell, but they were bickering about it until they both looked up at me. "Marco!" Connie hollered.

  
"Marco- The receipt paper faces _this_ way right?" Eren immediately asked, pulling the roll up and holding it to me. I thought about explaining it to him, but realized it would be a lot easier to just do it for them then to let the two bicker it out.

  
I popped the roll in the proper way and then closed the printer, watching as the machine beeped back and spat out a test strip. "I _told_ you it went that way!" Eren scolded while Connie just looked confused.

  
"I could've sworn it was the other way…" he mumbled. I headed behind the counter to punch in, Connie stepping away from the printer to sulk somewhere else.

  
"Who's all working tonight?" I asked, grabbing the brunette’s attention.

  
Eren turned to me and then looked down towards the back room, "I think Connie's off now that you're here. Armin's off in an hour and then Jeanine's here until, like eight or nine, I don't remember."

  
"She's working right now?" I asked, surprised to hear that she wasn't on an earlier shift.

  
"Yeah, Krista had to change her schedule around so Levi switched them," Eren explained.

  
"Is it permanent?"

  
"I think so," his vibrant eyes slipped up to lock with mine and it was then that I noticed he looked a bit tense. I didn't think of why that was until he shot a look down the hall. "That's...not going to be a problem, right?" he asked, his voice quiet.

  
I gave him a confused look. "What? No, why would it be...?"

  
"Well, it's just…Jeanine said you two were having a pretty hard time lately."

  
"She said that..?" I breathed, wondering just how long ago it was that Eren heard that. Hopefully not recently, I was under the impression that things between us were at least on the better side of things.

  
Eren nodded, his eyes watching me to gauge my reaction. Before I got the chance to say anything, Levi and Jean both stepped out from the back room. He was talking to her about something, probably work related, but he headed towards the bathrooms and left her standing by one of the aisles.

  
I moved away from Eren and headed up towards her, her eyes catching movement and snapping to me when she noticed. She smiled at me and nodded her head. "What's up?"

  
"Hey," I breathed, gently grabbing her arm and giving her a soft kiss. "It's weird seeing you here so late," I felt Eren's eyes dart away from us after our kiss.

  
"Yeah, and man am I ready for a nap," she let out a yawn, using her hand to cover her mouth. "I've been falling asleep at like, nine. How am I supposed to work until then?"

  
I chuckled and then gestured to the store, "You know this place has a million energy boosting things here, if you need a kick or anything."

  
"Ugh," she groaned. "You mean shit coffee and diabetes in a can energy drin-"

  
_WHAM-!_

  
A sound of a loud crash echoed from behind the Slurpee station causing both of us to jump and Eren to poke his head over the counter. We all looked towards the back, the sound of something metal rolling around on the ground the only noise in the store.

  
_"CONNIE!"_

  
"Oh shit," Jean breathed after hearing the stern tone of Levi's voice. Eren hopped over the counter and headed towards the back but was stopped when Levi stepped out, a red substance splashed all over his clothes. I brought a hand to my mouth while Eren and Jean both tried not to laugh loud enough for Levi to hear.

  
Connie emerged after Levi, not a single drop of whatever it was that exploded on him. His face was red from what looked like embarrassment, or maybe fear.

  
Levi booked it straight for the back, more than likely to change. (Knowing him, he probably had a spare outfit to change into.)

  
Eren and Jean both snorted out loud with laughter when Connie sent a terrified look their way. Eren almost buckled over, his hands on his thighs for support, "Connie what did you _do?!"_

  
"I-I didn't mean to!" Connie started, pulling his hands to his face, "I didn't know he was there! God he is so fuckin' _quiet."_

  
"Oh god, I have to see this mess," Jean laughed, nudging both Eren and I on our shoulders and heading towards the back. She took a step into the back room and her feet went sliding up from under her. "Wh-whoa-!" Her arms went outward to try to keep her from hitting the floor.

  
Both Eren and I jumped to keep her standing straight, one of her arms on either of us. Jean looked between the two of us, surprise on her face at the fact that she had two people catch her. Eren immediately withdrew his hands from her, mumbling a sorry under his breath as Jean leaned more onto me for balance. I couldn't help but stare at Eren after that, the faint hint of a blush on his face as he pointed down at the ground.

"Jesus Connie, it looks like a murder scene in here!"

  
"Was that one of the syrup bags?" Jean asked, her arm still on my shoulder as she stepped back and out of the mess on the floor.

  
Connie poked his head over our shoulders, looking at the floor. "Goddammit. Levi's going to kill me. And then Sasha's going to kill me for not bringing her truck home. And then Ma's gonna kill me for being kille-"

  
"Connie, if you don't stop _I'm_ going to kill you," Jean cut him off.

  
"Yeah you better clean it up before you leave," Eren pointed out, "Or you can add me to that list."

  
Connie buried his head in his hands, letting out a groan. I let out a soft chuckle, turning to go get a mop bucket ready for him but was stopped when the sound of the bell from the door rang through the store. Instinctively, we all kicked into work mode, stepping away from the mess in the back and rearranging things on the shelves that didn't need to be arranged.

  
"Holy, hot mother fucker!" Jean whispered, looking over the aisles at the customer that walked in.

  
"Is he a model?" Eren commented.

  
I poked my head around the corner, interested in what they were talking about and my jaw almost hit the floor. There was a tall blond haired man in an expensive looking get up, leaning on the counter as he waited for someone to greet him. He was big too, his muscles caused part of the button up he wore to curve in certain places, and the few loose buttons at the top of his shirt displayed his thick neck and smooth collarbone.

  
He pulled a pair of sunglasses away from his face, looking around at the counter.

  
I felt Jean and Eren both shove me, "Go deal with him!" Jean whispered.

  
"What? No! It's Eren's drawer, why should I?"

  
"Dude, come on you can't make me talk to _that_ , I might accidentally suck his dick or something!" Eren snapped in a hushed tone. He gave my shoulder another shove and I found myself making my way towards the counter.

  
Jesus, if this guy wasn't a model he sure as hell was someone important.

  
"Hi!" I greeted, catching his attention as I stepped towards the counter. His blue eyes landed on mine and he smiled, "Is there something I can do for you?" I asked after noticing he didn't have anything on the counter.

  
"Yes. If it's not too much trouble, is there any way I could speak to Levi?" The words left his lips in a deep smooth voice. "Let him know it's Erwin."

  
"Uh, yeah, sure. One second," I took in a breath, realizing that meant that I had to go into the back where Levi was probably hissing profanities at his clothes and equally angry as he was when he got splashed.

  
Eren owed me big time for this.

  
I stepped towards the break room, poking my head in carefully to look for Levi. He was standing over the sink with his shirt pulled up and into the sink, the water running.

  
"Uh, Levi?"

  
 _"What,"_ He snapped, not turning away from his scrubbing.

  
"There's a guy asking for you. He said his name was Erwin," I watched as Levi's movements stopped, his arm no longer working on getting the syrup out of his shirt. He let out a long breath and then reached for the handle on the sink.

  
I moved to the side as he walked past, nearly stomping with each step he took. He looked ridiculous with his red-stained white shirt, and the apron hanging around his waist. With the scowl on his face, it looked like he just walked away from murdering someone.

  
I followed behind him as he walked towards the counter, Erwin turning to see him step out and letting out a loud laugh. "Erwin, I will hang your balls over my fucking car mirror if you say another fucking word." Levi threatened.

  
I nearly choked on my spit at the insult.

  
It was safe to say that they were at least friends then, if Levi was talking like that.

  
"Well, it's nice to see you too," he cooed, leaning back on the counter as Levi stepped towards the register.

  
"Is it? I thought I remembered telling you I didn't want to see you anymore."

  
Okay, so maybe they weren't friends.

  
"No, you told me that if you saw me again you were going to carve out your own eyeballs so you didn't have to look at me."

  
Or...were they?

  
I didn't want to be caught eavesdropping, so I took my place back to where Eren and Jean were. Connie was in the back actually cleaning up the mess, so he was missing out, but I wasn't going to get him.

  
Jean and Eren were both peeking over the aisles when I approached.

  
"Dude, who the fuck is that guy?" Eren asked me in a hushed voice.

  
"Yeah and why's he talking to _Levi?_ " Jean remarked. I just shrugged my shoulders and went back to eavesdropping.

  
"What do you want, Erwin? I'm at work, I've got better things to do than deal with your fuckin' bullshit."

  
"I was hoping you might be interested in discussing what happened between us previously?"

  
"No. Fuck off." Levi spat, getting ready to turn on his heel and head towards the break room again. Erwin reached a hand out and grabbed hold of his wrist, stopping him from leaving.

  
"Levi, please?" He begged. The look he gave the shorter man was enough to make any woman faint.

  
Levi's eyes stared holes into the blond, clicking his tongue at him. "Fuck-" he yanked his hand away from the blond's. _"-Off,"_ and with that, he turned on his heel and headed back towards the break room.

  
The three of us watched as the blond man at the counter stared after Levi, waiting until he was out of sight before Erwin turned and left; a sad look on his face.

  
I turned to look at Jean and Eren who both had the same surprised and confused look on their faces as I did. "Who-"

  
"-In the _hell?_ " Jean finished.

  
"You guys think that was like, Levi's boss or something?" Eren asked.

  
"He looked rich enough to be a boss at least." I added.

  
"You don't think that…Those two might've been…You know, a thing, do you?" Jean asked.

  
"What're you guys talking about?" The three of us nearly jumped out of our skin when a soft voice crept over our shoulders.

  
_"Shit_ , Armin! Where the hell did you come from!" Jean snapped.

  
I turned to look at the blond, his cheeks a rosy red and his nose running just a bit. He wiped away at his nose and then pointed towards the freezer. "I was in the walk-in, organizing things."

  
"I forgot you were here, damn." Eren commented, his hand resting over his heart. Armin rolled his eyes at Eren, and then turned to look in the room that Connie was currently cleaning up. His eyes landed on the mess the bald man had made and he shook his head, moving his gaze towards me.

  
"So besides Connie's mess, was there anything else I needed to do?" I took a glance around the store and then shrugged.

  
"I dunno, I just got here. Ask one of those two," I pointed towards the two dorks next to me, to which Jean gave me a rather offended look and Eren just pouted.

* * *

 

After Connie and Armin left, the hours started to go by slower. My twelve hour shift started to feel more like an entire day. Jean was the next one out the door, and with the constant yawning she was doing, she nearly booked it out of there when she was finally off.

  
I was busy dealing with the coffee station and the horrible mess it always became after a couple customers when Jean slipped next to me. She tugged on my sleeve, grabbing my attention and the first thing I noticed was the slight hint at a smile. "Could I... Talk to you for a second?"

  
"Sure, what's up?" I responded with, abandoning my task and facing her.

  
"I... I think I'm ready. I think I'm going to come out," she breathed, her hands tangling together in nervousness.

  
"Wha...," I paused, confused on what she was saying. I leaned in a bit closer to her, my voice low. "I thought we were already doing that next Thursday?"

  
"No, no, no," She fanned. "Not with my parents. I mean...Everyone else." She shrugged her shoulders and then looked at me to gauge my reaction.

"Like...Eren and Armin and..everyone."

  
I held her gaze for a moment, letting my brain run while I tried to fully process what that meant. God, what was I supposed to do if anyone reacted negatively towards her? I mean, our friends wouldn't act that way, would they?

  
"Are you sure about doing that? I mean, do you know who you're going to tell first?" I kept my voice low, even though Eren was never at all conspicuous when he walked around.

  
Jean's eyes looked around the store and then nodded towards the brunette that was stocking things by the register. "Eren. I'm gonna do it right now." A look of confidence and courage erupted in her eyes and I had to grab her arm to stop her from storming right past me.

  
"Whoa-whoa, Jean _wait,_ " she looked at me, arching an eyebrow in confusion. I released her when she stopped, rubbing the back of my neck. "Telling someone at work...might not be the best idea. I mean, I hate to use myself as an example, but what if Eren reacts like...how I did," I trailed off the last part, biting my lip.

  
She just shook her head and let out a forced chuckle. "Yeah but... This is Eren we're talking about. Eren, who will literally fuck anything if he gets the chance and would probably wear a dress if you got him one."

  
"I guess that's true. I just don't want things to be awkward for you at work," I mumbled.

  
Jean scoffed, "The only way it'd be awkward was if I told Levi, everyone else I feel like I'm close enough to not be judged, you know?"

  
I felt a sharp pain shoot through my heart hearing those words. I never did tell her that I already went ahead and spilled her secret to Levi. Now how on earth was I supposed to? Just drop it in there casually as I tried to talk her out of jumping the gun?

  
"And there's another thing we gotta work on too, Marco," she started, giving me a playful punch in the arm. I smiled at her in response and she continued. "He. It's 'he' now. As soon as I tell, well, everyone, we gotta work on you using 'he' instead."

  
"…Yeah, okay," I agreed, feeling another twinge of pain shoot through my heart. Jean's smile fell to the dullness in my voice. She looked at me with a questioning gaze and I couldn't help but put on a fake smile if it meant taking her worry away, "Of course."

  
Jean turned back towards Eren and then slipped her hand into mine, "Marco, can you come with me? Please, I feel like if I don't do this now, I won't have the courage to again."

  
"Jeani-" I stopped mid word, surprising myself with getting her name wrong. I had done so well with it, but the name just slipped off my tongue. "...I'm sorry," I apologized, her fingers squeezing mine and grabbing my attention.

  
"Marco, you're just the worst you know that?" I quickly brought my gaze up to meet hers, startled by the offensive words. It wasn't until I saw the playful smirk on her face that I realized she was messing with me. "How dare you ever make a mistake. Now come on!" She gave my hand a tug and before I could protest any longer we were walking towards Eren as he struggled to get all the gum packets to stay in their place on the shelf.  
Eren caught our movement and looked up at the two of us, his bright eyes catching the uncomfortable vibe that we brought with us. "What's up, guys?" he breathed, looking between us as he stood from his knelt down position.

  
I felt Jean's hand on mine tighten, grabbing my attention and realizing that she was seriously already backing out. I let out a sigh and then decided to be the one to speak up. "She's got something to tell you."

  
Eren's body language shifted into a much more serious tone, his expression more professional. "What is it...?" He asked, his voice low.

  
I turned to look at Jean, her face looking pale, "Eren I…." she cut off, taking in a breath and then wriggling her hand out of mine nervously, "Um.."  
"Is everything alright?" He asked, taking a hand and rubbing it along her shoulder for comfort. Jean looked even more nervous after those words, tangling her fingers about like a drug addict looking for a fix. I watched her, doing what I could to encourage her as her eyes bounced frantically from mine to Eren's. The brunette waited patiently, but there was worry written all over his face as he watched her. "Look if there's something happening between you two I don't mi-"

  
"-No!" Jean spat out, completely cutting him off. She took in a deep breath, taking one last look at me for reassurance. She looked completely panicked. Offering her a smile and nodding towards Eren, I tried to give her all the confidence I could to get her to speak up. "I'm.." Jean started, but she looked on the edge of vomiting all over Eren before actually speaking again. "...I'm a boy." She breathed out, her eyes dropping to the floor. "I'm gonna be a boy."

  
Eren's hand was still on her shoulder, his face expressionless and staring at her. He blinked.

  
Then blinked again.

  
Then he let out a long breath, "Oh thank God. Okay, not gonna lie, I thought for a second you were gonna ask me for a threesome."

  
Jean pulled her hands away from her face, staring at Eren. "You don't....You're not gonna say anything?"

  
"What? What I said wasn't good enough for your ears?" Eren spat, going right back into his playful tone.

  
Being honest I was a bit envious of him. How did he take news like that so smoothly? How could he just bounce right back into it like it was nothing?

  
"No Eren. I don't think you get it... I'm...I'm going to t-transition," she stuttered.

  
"Yeah and I'm going to kick this fucking shelf in if it doesn't learn how to hold fucking _gum!"_

  
Jean stared wildly at Eren. She watched as he took the packs of gum that kept slipping off the shelf and throwing it on the counter, giving up on it. Eren let out a sigh and then turned to Jean, giving her a smile.

  
She didn't know what to do.

  
"Hey don't look at me like that," Eren cooed, opening his arms up for a hug. She still seemed shocked by his reaction because she didn't move. "Dick or no dick, you've always kinda been like a dude to me anyway so whatever man."

  
"Eren…." she choked, but instead of going in for the hug, she threw a punch into his gut. Eren's arms went to his stomach, huddling in on himself. "Okay. Now I'm confused," he wheezed.

  
"A _threesome?!"_ Jean brought up.

  
Eren held his hands up protectively, "In my defense," Eren started, standing up right. He looked over at me like I had some answer for him, but I held my hands up and shook my head, not getting involved with it. Jean squinted at him, waiting for his response. "I...would've totally said yes."

  
I slapped a hand to my face, shaking my head at his response. Jean couldn't even find it in himself to be mad enough for a retort. She just stood there, mouth dropped and eyebrows scrunched together like she was asking "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

  
Eren took light of the moment and smiled, "So Jeanine...Is that what all the drama's been?"

  
Jean's shoulders dropped. She looked over at me, but she wasn't smiling. I felt my eyes land on the ground, not wanting to hear her response.

  
"Yeah..And it's Jean now..." she corrected, looking down.

  
"Jean? Pfft sounds like something you'd come up with," Eren joked.

  
Before she got the chance to reply, we were interrupted by Levi, who came out from the back. He'd given up on his shirt hours ago, having to borrow Jean's Panic! At the Disco hoodie while he soaked his shirt in the back sink in baking soda, "Jeanine, why're you still here? You were off a while ago."

  
Jean turned from Eren to Levi and shrugged her shoulders. She went to say something but Eren beat her to it, "It's Jean now, Levi."

  
Both Jean and I turned to Eren with our eyes wide.

  
Fuck.

  
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I immediately turned to Levi to judge his reaction, hoping to God he said anything other than the fact that he already knew.

  
_"Eren!"_ Jean hissed through her teeth. She turned to look at Levi, fear written all over her face.

  
_"...Jean?"_ He repeated, looking from Eren to her.

  
She looked worried, but she still nodded her head.

  
Levi just groaned in response, "Ugh, that means I gotta make a new fuckin' name tag...Goddammit."

  
I've never seen Jean full of so much relief than I did there.

  
Levi just rubbed at his eyes and then fanned Jean away, "Look, I'll give it to you tomorrow, along with your hoodie."

  
"I don't...uh, work tomorrow."

  
Levi's face was deadpanned when he stared at her, "Well since over half the employees that work here are your friends, I'm sure one of them could drop it off for you. Now go home already."

  
Jean just nodded, turning to go to the back but stopping mid-step when she realized all she needed was her hoodie, and Levi was currently occupying it. She just turned to me then and stepped closer. She placed a kiss on my lips and pulled away just slightly, "Get on Facebook when you get home, okay?"

  
"Alright," I nodded, kissing her forehead and watching her turn to leave.

  
She walked towards Eren, "Also, I didn't think I had to say this, but I'm kind of still working on coming out so can you keep your mouth _shut?"_

  
Eren made a confused face, scrunching his eyebrows together, "But Levi already kn-"

  
"Eren, maybe you should go brew some fuckin' coffee or something," Levi stated, quickly cutting him off. My heart dropped, turning to stare at Levi in shock. Levi didn't look back at me but instead stared holes into Eren.

  
Jean stared between the three of us with suspicion, turning towards Eren. "...What were you going to say?" Eren turned to look at us, a panic on his face, but Jean waved her hand in his line of sight, "No, don't look at them, what were you going to say?"

  
"That...Levi..." Eren bit his lip, caving in on himself like he was getting prepared for a punch, "Already..." It was painful to hear him try and come up with a lie. Goddammit Eren. "Knows someone who went through the same thing… I just thought, you know, he's friends with a trans, so he'd definitely be cool with it, right?" Eren then turned to Levi, trying to get some kind of support. This brought Jean's eyes onto Levi, the suspicion on her face melting away as she stared at him.

  
"Do...Do you really know someone?" She breathed.

  
All of us turned to Levi. "Yeah, I do." He responded.

  
"...Are they...like, fully transitioned? Oh my god, Could I talk to them? Would I be able to ask them-"

  
"Wait, wait, wait-" Levi cut her off, holding his hands up to slow her down. "I haven't talked to them in a long time, and I don't even know if they'd be up for it. Just… Let me try and get back in touch with them first."

  
Jean's face lit up with excitement, "Thank you!" She jumped, heading over to Levi and pulling him into a hug, "Thank you, thank you!"

  
Levi immediately wormed out of the hold and gave Jean a gentle push back, "Alright, alright, just go fuckin' home now."

  
She nodded and then almost booked it out of there, leaving the three of us to stare after her.

  
After a moment of silence I turned towards Levi, "You _told Eren?!"_ I snapped at him.

  
"It was a slip-up, I didn't mean to!" He retorted with, and then turned to the brunette. "And what the fuck was _that_ excuse?"

  
"I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that this was a 'keep secrets from Jeanine' meeting!" Eren countered. "And I didn't see either of you coming up with anything better!"

  
" 'It's Jean now, Eren.' " Levi stated, mocking Eren's earlier statement, "And you are so fucking lucky that I actually do know someone.."

  
"You didn't tell anyone else, did you?" I cut in, worried.

  
Levi shrugged his shoulders. "Connie might've heard... But I don't think he was paying attention."

  
"What the hell did you say?!" I asked, feeling frustrated.

  
"I just..." Levi trailed off, rolling his shoulder. "Said stuff.."

  
Eren sighed, rolling his eyes. "Connie couldn't figure out how to do something and Levi said that Connie was 'about as confused as Marco had been when his girlfriend came out.' and yeah. I asked him what he meant by it."

  
I turned to look at Levi, watching as he glared at Eren. I didn't know what to say. I didn't even know how to feel at that moment. He turned to me and then let out a sigh, bringing a hand to his forehead.

  
"Look, Marco. I'm sorry I slipped it out, but if I hadn't, that whole scene a second ago might not have gone so well." Levi stated.

  
Eren rolled his eyes. "I reacted almost the exact same way, don't let him fool you."

  
I shook my head and held my hands up getting the two to stop talking. The thought of what Bertholdt said about Eren texting him popped into my head. "How long ago was this?"

  
"It was before you got here today," Eren shrugged, "and not to side with Levi, but I think it might be better for everyone to get a heads up... Y'know, to give them time to react properly about it when Jeani-- _Jean_ does tell everyone."

  
"..." My eyes cast down to the floor, unsure of what to say. The two stared at me, waiting for some kind of reaction, but I just fanned a hand at them and then turned on my heel. "I'm gonna go... sweep or something," I breathed, Eren's words tossing around in my head.

  
If Eren was telling me that, then he must have a feeling that someone in our friend group wasn't going to take too kindly of Jean's confession.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to point out something that I feel is a bit important to the story. The whole use of pronouns I'm sure is going to get brought up, so I'll explain why Marco's still using "She" in this even after Jean has pointed out to him that it is indeed "He."  
> It's very simple really.   
> Marco just still sees Jean as a girl. That's it.   
> It's something that will be brought up as well in future chapters so I'll leave the long explanations to that. Thanks so much for all the great feedback everyone! (ﾉﾟ▽ﾟ)ﾉ


	5. Attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW; There is a scene with vomiting towards the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *✲ﾟ*｡✧٩(･ิᴗ･ิ๑)۶*✲ﾟ*｡✧ please let the sparkles blind you from the fact that it has been an ENTIRE YEAR since I last updated--  
> It totally wasn't intentional, I promise. There's been a lot that has happened in the last year that's kept me from having any time to write. I had to recover from two deaths and a lot more personal things bUT HECK YEAH GUESS WHO'S BACK??  
> I'm already working on the next chapter so it's back to actual updates!

With everything that had been going on recently in my life, one would think I couldn't be phased by anything at this point. The constant life-changing news like Reiner possibly being gay and Jean getting ready to transition should've prepared me for anything.

  
Yet, I was still surprised and confused when I opened up the front door at four in the morning to find Bertholdt standing there. He was a complete mess, his cheeks were stained with tears and his left eye looked swollen, like something had hit him there. As tired as I was, I still happened to notice the back seat of his beat down car was filled with quite a few bags. "..." I was quiet, not even asking Bertholdt what happened as I stepped aside and pulled him in my house.

  
The phone that Bertholdt had called me on glared brightly in the darkness of my house. I led him back towards my room, shutting the door quietly and then turning on the light. He stood in place awkwardly for a moment before just dropping to the floor. Bertholdt pulled his knees to his chest and dropped his face on top of them. I stared at him for a moment, listening intently to the silence between us.

  
"....Did you want to talk about it?" I questioned.

  
He shook his head too quickly, which made me think about his eye again. I leaned down next to him. "Hey..." I whispered, trying to get him to look up at me. "Lemme see how bad it is."

  
Bertholdt was slow, but he eventually lifted his head and let me examine his eye. I was very careful not to bother it as I stared at it. It was swelling pretty badly. Pulling away from him, I looked over his appearance. "You don't work tomorrow, do you?" Well, today, but I'm sure he knew what I meant.

  
He nodded, taking in a hiccuped breath. "I'm supposed to open." He mumbled.

  
"Okay well you need to call in." I advised. "Text your boss right now and tell him you have an emergency, he can't get mad at you for that."

Bertholdt dug in his pocket, pulling out his phone and then letting it slip out of his hand and onto the floor. Looking up, I noticed his lip quivering before he buried his head into his knees again.

  
I watched him for a moment before standing from my spot and heading towards my door. "I'm gonna get you something to put on that." I didn't wait for a reply as I stepped out of my room and headed towards the kitchen. I was trying to be as quiet as I could be, hoping not to wake up my parents.

  
Opening up the freezer, I grabbed out an ice pack Mom always kept in there for emergencies and then turned for a wash cloth to wrap it in.

Standing at the counter, I wrapped the bag with a towel and stared at it for a moment, my mind fully awake now and trying to piece together something with the evidence I had in front of me.

  
All I could think of was that Reiner and Bertholdt had gotten into a fight of some sort, but that seemed so far-fetched. They were both peace-makers, what could they even fight over?

  
_"Maybe not gay, but definitely into guys."_

  
Was that issue addressed maybe? And this was how Reiner reacted to it? It still didn't seem plausible.

  
I set the ice pack down and then moved towards the sink, grabbing a glass from the cupboards and filling it up with water. Picking up the ice pack with my free hand, I made my way back to my bedroom.

  
Bertholdt hadn't moved an inch. I could hear him sniffling as I approached. His phone still laid on the floor, but it was now flashing with a new message. I hoped it was a response to calling off of work, but I had no idea.

  
He lifted his head in response to hearing me crouch down beside him. I handed him the glass of water first and watched as he took a large drink from it, wiping the tears from his good eye away. I brought the ice pack to Bertholdt's temple, lightly pressing against it. He flinched at first but then welcomed it.

  
"Bertholdt, who did this?" I questioned. I know he didn't want to talk about it, but he could at least tell me that much, couldn't he?

  
"...." He bit his lip, looking like he was contemplating on telling me or not. After a moment, he shook his head again, deciding to keep his mouth shut.

  
That didn't sit well with me. He either didn't trust me with the information or was maybe just.. not ready to talk about it. I wanted to believe the later.

  
We were quiet for a while, the silence between us filled with an odd tension. He knew how much I wanted to know what happened to him, and I'm sure he felt guilty for not telling me.

  
Bertholdt finished off the glass of water, taking the ice pack from me and holding it against his eye. I stood from my spot, picking up the empty glass with me. "Sleep in my bed tonight. I'll sleep out on the couch, I'm sure Mom won't mind."

  
"Are you sure?" He mumbled.

  
"Yeah." I headed towards the door, flicking the light off as I stepped out. "Keep that ice pack on your head."

 

* * *

  
I woke up the next morning to my mom nudging my shoulder and calling my name. I was in such a good sleep, I didn't register that I wasn't in a dream until around the fourth time she shoved me. "Marco, get up." She hissed at me.

  
When I finally came to, I had to struggle to sit up. My neck was stiff and my body felt like it had sunk into the couch. "..ugh..." I groaned, rubbing the back of my neck. Mom took a seat down next to me as I struggled to get an idea of the time.

  
"When did Bertholdt come over?" Mom asked me.

  
"Bert..." All the events of last night flooded back to me, waking me up almost instantly. "Oh...last night."

  
"What time last night?"

  
"Like....four." I responded. Mom gave me a worried look and I shrugged. "I don't know what happened, he wouldn't tell me." I threw myself into the back of the couch and let out a yawn. "His eye's messed up. Like someone punched him."

  
"Oh that poor boy..." Mom gasped. Her eyes went towards the window, peeking out into the street and at Bertholdt's car. "Is he going to be okay?"

  
"I hope so..." I mumbled. "I should go check on him." Mom nodded and watched me stand up, heading off towards the kitchen. I headed for my door, wondering if Bertholdt would even be up right now. Well, with anxiety being Bertholdt's best friend, I'd be more surprised if he wasn't up.

  
When I cracked open the door to peek in, my suspicions were right. Bertholdt was sitting on the floor with his back against my bed. He was bouncing his foot, his head snapping towards me when he heard the creak of the door.

  
I instinctively winced upon seeing how bad his eye had gotten. The swelling had gone down, but he didn't look to be able to open his eye. There was an incomplete circle of a bruise that took up the space on his cheek bone. "It's just me." I said soothingly as I shut the door behind me.

"Feeling any better?"

  
Bertholdt relaxed at my presence, shrugging in response. "I can't tell. My head hurts." I let out a sigh, stepping into my room and sitting on my bed, next to Bertholdt. "My boss wants a doctors note for calling off."

  
"Seriously? Have you ever called off before?"

  
"Yeah, once to go get drunk with Annie, Connie, Sasha and Rei-..." He cut off, his gaze turning towards the side. "...Anyway, my boss found out and thinks that's what I'm doing here."

  
"What an ass." I commented with a scoff. "He should be able to look at your face and tell without needing a doctor's note."

  
"Yeah.." Bertholdt dropped his head back against my thigh, staring up at nothing in particular. He looked like the personification of melancholy in that moment. "...I almost told him I quit..." He murmured. My gaze stayed on Bertholdt's face, trying to decipher the aura he was giving off. "...I don't want to work anymore." It didn't take a seconds thought to understand what he meant when he said that. He wasn't only referring to his job.

  
"Bertholdt..." I started, unsure how to approach this. Just last week Bertholdt had me in his car with the fear of Jean's life with him. Now he'd done a complete switch. Whatever happened must've been big--especially if he wasn't willing to talk to me about it. "...Did Reiner do this to you...?"

  
"No." He answered, but it sounded a lot more complicated than just that simple response. Thinking back to the bag full of things in his car, I couldn't stop my worry from increasing.

  
"Do you need somewhere to stay...? For now at least?" I asked. He looked like he hadn't thought that far ahead. "Mom already knows you're here, and she likes you a lot already so I know she won't have a problem with it. And Dad only cares about how mom feels so you're welcome here."

  
"I figured I'd just stay in my car until I got things sorted out."

  
"What? That's ridiculous, no way." What kind of friend would I be if I let him sleep in a car? "You're staying here, and don't try to argue that."

  
"..Okay." Even though he agreed, it didn't feel like it. "Do you work today?"

  
With that question came the horrible realization that today was the day Jean had planned to come out to her- _his_ parents. "Uh..." I wasn't sure how to answer him. "Well...No...but.." I'm sure if I explained the situation to Jean, we could probably work out another day for it. "I'm supposed to have dinner over at Jean's place."

  
"Oh." He breathed, but there was complete disappointment laced in his tone. I was hit with a wave of guilt for not immediately canceling those plans. "....Jean." He sounded like he was trying out that name on his lips. "Why do you keep calling her that?"

  
"..." I opened my mouth trying to decide whether or not I wanted to tell him. Letting out a sigh, I figured telling him might take his mind off things.

"She...came out as trans. Jean's the name she picked out."

  
"Trans? Isn't she a little old to be pulling something like that?" Bertholdt questioned.

  
"..What?" I was thrown off a bit by Bertholdt's tone. He sounded.. like he didn't believe me? Or maybe didn't believe Jean.

  
"...Nothing, never mind." Bertholdt lifted his head up, bringing a hand to his temple and wincing. I stared at him for a moment longer, unsure how to take what he just said. I wanted to question him further on it, but now definitely didn't feel like the best time to. At least he dropped it.

  
"...Alright.." I mumbled. "I don't have to leave for a little while and when I do, you can just lock yourself up in here if you're too uncomfortable with my par-"

  
"-You're still going to go...?" He questioned, cutting me off.

  
"Uh..." The guilt from before washed over me as I found myself pinned in a very difficult spot. Ditch Jean and be here for Bertholdt or ditch Bertholdt to be there for Jean. My best friend and my girlfriend... Boyfriend? Either way- it was a hard spot to be in. "I'm sorry Bert.. We've been planning this for over a week now, she'd kill me if I tried to cancel."

  
"Over a dinner?"

  
"It's more than that..." I sighed, looking down at the ground. "Jean's trying to come out to her parents.. She wants me to be there for her in case they don't take it too well.."

  
"You think it's bullshit, don't you?"

  
To this, my eyes snapped to Bertholdt's. " _What_." I snapped at him.

  
"The whole trans thing, you don't believe it, do you?"

  
"Why would you even suggest something like that?!" I questioned him, confused as to what his motive was.

  
Bertholdt tossed his head back against my bed, closing his eyes. "You're not even trying to correct yourself. " He let out a sigh, like he was trying to rephrase his words. "You're using Jean but she's still just a girl to you, right?"

  
I hadn't really spent much time in trying to correct my use of pronouns. If I was being honest, I didn't ever think about it really. "That's not the case at all." The words slipped past my lips but not at all with the confidence I wish they would've held. "It's just.. hard, okay? She's been a girl to me since I've met her and it's not like she's made any drastic changes to herself in that period. It's just really hard trying to unseen Jeanine and learn to see Jean."

  
Bertholdt didn't comment. I thought about changing the subject. "So you don't believe Jean then? That's s--he's trans?"

  
"Not really, no." Bertholdt mumbled. "It's really out of the blue and Jeanine's been famous for doing things to get her some attention."

  
"You honestly think she'd lie about something this life-changing?"

  
"No, not lie. I just feel like maybe.. She's misguided?" Bertholdt shrugged. "It's just weird. Most trans people--actually all trans people that I've known of wouldn't go changing their name to something so close to their birth name. Jean, Jeanine-- all she did was knock off a few letters."

  
"So what? They don't really sound the same. It's just the spelling."

  
"Okay, but why so late in her life?" Bertholdt questioned. "I mean, she's about to be starting college-- Would she really have kept that bottled up for so long? Or did it really take that long for her to come out with it?" He shook his head, stopping himself from continuing his accusations.

  
"Bert, not everyone knows who they are at our age. And even if she just figured this out, or has known for years, we don't know how long it's taken her to get the courage to say it."

  
"..Eh." He shrugged, completely dismissing the points I made. His feelings weren't really movable at this point it seemed.

  
I let out a sigh, changing the direction of the conversation. "Just...Regardless of how you feel, can you just try to be supportive towards her? She's been let down enough as it is already."

  
Bertholdt brought a hand to his head again, pressing hard against his skull. "Yeah sure-" He groaned quietly, releasing some of the pressure he was forcing on his head. "Do you have anything for a headache?"

  
"I'm sure Mom's got something." I stood from my spot and left the room, a little relieved to be leaving that conversation behind me.

  
Walking down the hallway, I caught a whiff of something sweet as I moved closer to the kitchen. I could hear the sizzle of food on the stove and the light humming from my mom as she cooked. Stepping into the kitchen, I raised an eyebrow at the near breakfast buffet she was cooking up.

  
"Mom what the hell?" I questioned, glancing at the plate of cooked pancakes and french toast she had on the counter. There was a bowl of scrambled eggs next to it and she was currently cooking up sausage and bacon.

  
"What?" She asked innocently. I gestured to all the food and her shoulders dropped. "Is it too much? I knew I over did it."

  
"Just a little bit."

  
"I'm sorry I just- I feel so bad for him." Mom went back to poking at the meat, but her face looked like she had something more to say. My eyes stayed on her for a minute before I went for the cupboard above the counter for a glass. "Honey, I called Reiner's parents to see what happened."

  
"What...?" I mumbled, turning towards her. "Did they tell you?"

  
Mom clicked the stove off, moving the pan of cooked meat to another burner and then turned to me. I could tell by the way her jaw was clenched up that she had quite a lot to say. "You know, I thought for sure that there had to of been something that happened between those boys- something very serious if it was enough to make Reiner hit him but-" She let out an aggravated sigh as she wiped her hands off on the kitchen towel that hung off the oven handle. "Never would I have expected a pair of grown adults to be the reason behind it." Mom shook her head, looking baffled and angry. "Marco what kind of person would ever put their hands on a kid? Especially a kid that's not even theirs?"

  
"Wait-Reiner's....dad did that?" I knew he wasn't the best guy in the world, but I never thought he'd do something like put his hands on Bert. "How- Why?"

  
"Well, according to Agna, 'Bert's just over-reacting, and it wasn't that bad.' " She mocked Reiner's mom with an obnoxious and peppy voice.

  
"He hit Bertholdt?" I questioned, just trying to make sure that what I was hearing was correct.

  
"See, Agna said it was an accident. That things got heated between the two and some shoving occurred and then Bertholdt tripped and knocked his head on the stair's rail."

  
"Mom, he came over here at four in the morning crying, what the hell was there to argue about that time of night?"

  
"His behavior, apparently." She rolled her eyes as she huffed out a breath. "They don't like how he's been supposedly bringing Reiner down with him and his troubling choices. And if you think I believe for a second that Bertholdt's been hiding drugs in their house then you're an idiot."

  
"They said he had drugs in the house..?" I repeated. "God they don't make any sense..."

  
"Of course they don't. Nothing that comes out of Agna's mouth makes any sense." Mom turned back to the food she had cooked up and started moving them towards the table. I had abandoned the glass I grabbed and decided to help mom with setting the table. "They really wanted to paint Bertholdt like he was some kind of _thug_ or something and it just disgusts me to no end how they've treated that boy."

  
"I didn't realize they hated him that much honestly.." I mumbled. "It's weird that they would even let him live there with them if they didn't even like him slightly."

  
"That was all for some brownie points dear."

  
"Actually.." I started, thinking back to Bert's car full of his things. "Speaking of letting him live somewhere... He's allowed to stay here for a bit, right?"

  
"Oh god of course he is. The spare room's a bit of a disaster right now but we can clean that up in no time."

  
"Yeah, I can just sleep on the couch in the mean time."

  
Mom nodded and spun towards the fridge, grabbing out a pitcher of some kind of iced tea or something she had made. "Well, no more talking about this alright? Go get Bert and we'll have a nice, totally overdone breakfast and act like nothing happened."

  
"Alright." I started walking back towards my room before I remembered the reason I came out here for. "Oh, before I forget. Do we have anything that'd help with a headache? And also swelling and whatever else that could be going on with Bert's eye?"

  
"I'm sure I've got something." Mom mumbled to herself.

  
I left her to that task and turned back down the hallway. I wasn't satisfied at all with the little bit of information I had gotten out of my mom, but it was better than what I had in the first place. I know Reiner's mom had to of been leaving something out, but the only way I'd get the right answer would be from Bertholdt, and he still didn't seem up to talking about it right now.

  
I huffed as I reached my door, standing in front of it for a minute. I couldn't let Bertholdt deal with this by himself today. Not with how he looked when he first got here, especially not without knowing what had really happened to him. My stomach twisted as I came to a final decision. I was going to have to cancel on Jean.

  
Jean and I could always have another date. I couldn't postpone giving the emotional support that Bertholdt needed right now.

  
Twisting the door open, I stepped back into my room, looking over at Bert. "Hey."

  
"Took you long enough."

  
"Sorry, mom wanted help with breakfast. She went a little overboard with the food so I hope you're hungry."

  
"Yeah, a little." Bertholdt rolled away from the bed and onto his feet, following me out into the hallway.

  
"Mom's getting something for your headache. Go ahead, I gotta do something real quick."

  
He looked at me like he wanted to ask, but then moved past me and headed towards the kitchen. At any other house I'm sure Bertholdt would've stuck to my hip to avoid feeling imposing at all. He's come over my house so often he almost acts more comfortable here then Jean does.

  
After he left, I moved towards my nightstand, grabbing my phone off of it and making yet another douche bag move on Jean. Hovering over the call button on my phone, I tried to put together what it was I wanted to say and how much information I should give her. Letting out a quick sigh, I hit the dial button and brought it to my ear.

  
It made it to the third ring before Jean finally picked up. _"What's up?"_

  
"Hey..." I started, rubbing the back of my neck. "So you're not going to like this.."

  
_"...Marco if you're bailing on me, I swear to god-"_ She could tell what I was going to say before I even got the chance to say it. Granted, my opening line was definitely a big giveaway.

  
I was already starting to feel the guilt bubbling in my stomach. "Jean, I'm sorry. I wouldn't do this to you if it wasn't really important."

  
She was quiet on the other line for a long moment. _" What happened?"_

  
"....I can't talk about it. Not right now at least.. I'll see if I can text you about it later but I promise you, I have a good reason for it."

  
_"Marco."_ She groaned, frustration laced in her voice. _"What the hell do I tell my parents now? Mom already started prepping for dinner."_

  
The thought of Jean's mom's homemade french cooking made the breakfast my mom had cooked up seem a bit duller. "Tell them.. I don't know, say I had an emergency to deal with."

  
_"It's not an emergency, is it..?"_

  
"I mean... sort of? Don't worry about it, okay? I'll explain it when I can."

  
Jean let out a disappointed sigh. I know how important this dinner was to her, but it's not like I could bring Bertholdt with me or something. _"Alright...I'll see if Eren wants to come over then so the food doesn't go to waste at least."_

  
"I'm really sorry Jean..." I could imagine her rolling her eyes at my words then. The two of us were quiet, both waiting awkwardly for the other to say something. I broke the silence with a huff. "I gotta go. I love you."

  
_"Yeah, yeah."_ She mumbled. _"I love you too."_ She hung up before I could get a chance to say something else.

* * *

  
  
Bertholdt didn't take that long to adjust to staying at my place. After cleaning up the spare room a bit, he spent most of his time in there or hanging out with me in my room. It'd only been a few days, but I did notice that he didn't bring in much of his stuff from in his car. I wondered why, but never got around to asking him.

  
I didn't get to talk to Jean much the past couple of days, the both of us being busier then we wanted to be. Mom was a nightmare to work with when it came to handling her things, and Dad just made sure to avoid the chaos of the spare room altogether. It left me to carry all of mom's precious valuable dust collectors up to the attic until Bertholdt got home from work and helped out.

  
Jean was busy with "other stuff". What that other stuff was, I had no idea. It kept messages between us to a minimum and I was starting to find myself rather needy for her attention.

  
Unfortunately, the only time I was going to get any of that attention was at work. Which was also the place I was walking into now.

  
Jean was working already along with Sasha. Eren would be helping close and then once he was gone, I got to spend the overnight shift with Oluo.

All by myself.

  
I wasn't looking forward to it at all. I could only hope for there to be a bunch of management paperwork to keep him occupied.

  
I stepped behind the counter and clocked in and then walked past the aisles until I found Sasha crouched down by the chips with her eyes glued to her phone. I chuckled at her and gave myself away. Her brown eyes snapped to me and a smile spread across her lips. "Marco!" She greeted.

  
"Should I assume it's been a slow day?" I questioned, pointing down at her method for passing the time.

  
Sasha shrugged. "It's been off and on." Her face grew brighter as a thought popped into her head. "Hey, have you heard the good news yet!?"

  
"I don't think I've heard any good news lately..." I mumbled. If I had, it'd all been lost in the sea of events that had happened with Bertholdt for me to remember.

  
"Whaaat?" Sasha questioned. "I figured Jeanine would've told you first."

  
My heart skipped at the mention of her name. Would've told me what first? I tried to keep my aura calm, wondering if perhaps Jean had told Sasha. I couldn't imagine her doing something like that. As sweet as Sasha was, she couldn't keep a secret to save her life. And it's not necessarily because she's a gossiper. It's more like she doesn't recognize when it's okay and not okay to say things. Sasha would definitely be one of the last people to know about Jean if Jean had it her way.

  
"Levi's making her a manager!" She cheered.

  
I let out a breath of relief and then smiled. "I knew she was going to be one." I replied.

  
"It's about time too. Having just Oluo as a back up? Levi must really trust him to do something like that."

  
"I guess I can see why. Oluo's....interesting to say the least, but his constant Levi-mimicking makes him good with all the paperwork." I commented. A part of me wondered if Levi knew about how Oluo tried to be like him. Then again, if Levi did, he definitely wasn't the kind of guy to care about it.

  
"Yeah, when he's not talking." Sasha remarked. "I bet that's why Levi always schedules him and Mikasa together. He gets bored of talking to himself and actually does his work."

  
"True." I smiled. "Is Levi here right now?"

  
"Yeah, he's talking to Jeanine in the office. I think he's leaving right after though. Oluo's already here doing his count." Sasha's eyes went back to her phone as a notification noise sounded from it and her attention was immediately gone from the conversation. I stepped away from her and decided to head towards the office over Oluo.

  
I found Jean and Levi in the office pretty quickly. The two were talking over something, a folder in Jean's hands. Their conversation halted immediately with the sound of me stepping in. Jean's sharp hazel eyes connected with mine and I was sure we both felt the same twist in our chest right then. "Sorry, should I not be here?" I asked.

  
"God, Marco I'm so happy to see you, there's so much shit I have to tell you about." Jean started. "First of all- _bam_ \- look who just got a raise!" She held up the folder in her hands.

  
"Sasha told me. I'm really happy for you."

  
"-Actually since you're both here, I've got some things to say." Levi interrupted. Both Jean and I turned to him with blank faces, wondering what is was. "Marco," His eyes locked with mine, and I felt a bit of a shiver go down my spine. Whatever it was, it was serious. "You already know I want you to be a manager here I'm sure." I nodded at him. "It's mostly because you're a good worker, but there's another reason as well."

  
"There is?" I asked, trying to come up with an some kind of idea. Levi nodded and then continued.

  
"I don't want the two of you working together." To this Jean and I both went into the offended zone.

  
"What?" I murmured. Jean was quiet, but her face was enough to be demanding 'why the fuck not?'

  
"You're a couple. Couples sometimes fight. Couples sometimes get _distracted_ -"

  
"-Ew Levi! You really think we'd fuck each other in a 7/11?" Jean cut in. Levi merely gave a side glance to Jean and then brought his attention back to me.

  
"Couples sometimes make it awkward and uncomfortable for the people around the workplace." Did.. someone complain about us or something? "Especially when a majority of the people around the work place are said couples' close friends." He took in a breath and then turned in his spot, looking over some paperwork for a split second. "My point is, there are a lot of things going on in both of your personal lives and with the circumstances you have here, it's made it very easy for you two to have an affect on this store."

  
I nodded at Levi, hoping he realized that he made his point.

  
"I need the two of you to understand completely that I will _not_ be going through what I went through when you both started working here. As far as I'm concerned, the less you two work together, the better." He stood up from his spot and stretched his arms above his head. "With that being said-" A yawn interrupted his words. "I'm going home now. Congratulations on the promotion." He said as he walked past Jean, giving her shoulder an awkward pat.

  
Levi left the room with silence, my eyes turning to Jean. Her eyes were cast downward, deep thoughts and emotions scrawling past her face, even if she didn't move a muscle. "Jean?" I mumbled, reaching out a hand towards her. She looked over at me and let out a sigh.

  
"I suddenly don't feel so good about being promoted." She murmured.

  
"Hey, don't say that." I comforted, rubbing my hand along her back for support. "This means more money for you right?" Her only response was a deadpanned look. I tried to grab onto something to keep her from staying in the mood she'd just sunk into. "Well.. That means you can start getting your treatment sooner, doesn't it?"

  
Jean must've already thought of that fact, because her mood didn't change. She simply nodded and then shrugged my hand off of her shoulder.  
I held my gaze on her, unable to figure out what was making her so down. "Jean...what's wrong?" Her lips parted as she gathered her thoughts. "It's not like we won't be seeing each other ever again, we already work opposite shifts as it is-"

  
"-It's not that." She stopped me before I could go further. "It's just..." Her hand raked through her hair, pulling it out of her face for just a moment before it curved back into place. "Nothings really started yet and I've already become a problem."

  
"Oh..." Was my only response. Then I was quiet. I didn't know how to offer any advice or support for her. This was supposed to be the one thing I was good at, but for some reason I was always running into blank spaces with her. "...But-"

  
"We should get back to work." Jean wasn't going to give me the time to come up with anything for her. She put the folder she had in her hand off to the side on the office desk and then walked out of the office.

* * *

  
"Hey, Marco!" My hands were currently full with a bag of junk food when I heard my name called. I turned to see Eren near the back room, waving me down. "Come help me with something when you're done."

  
"Okay," I replied, handing the cheap plastic bag to the two stoned kids that had purchased the contents of it. "Have a good night." I murmured to them. After they left, I headed towards the back room and found Eren near the soda lines, all of them unplugged and recently cleaned down.

  
"I can't remember what goes where." The brunette gave me a sheepish smile, causing me to raise an eyebrow at him. I debated on pointing out that he'd done this plenty of times before by himself, but I decided not to. I smiled at him and then moved to join him in the mess of tubing he had everywhere.

  
There was silence between us for the most part, my eyes watching his moves and correcting him when he made simple mistakes. Eren looked so comfortable in the way he held himself, but face let me know that he was waiting for the right moment to say something.

  
Still we worked in silence.

  
"Mar-"

  
"-Eren-"

  
We both bit our lips and apologized. "Sorry, you go ahead." I encouraged, but to this Eren shook his head.

  
"No, no, you first."

  
"Okay," I paused for a moment and then pointed at the tube he was working on. "I was just.. going to say that you're attaching that to the wrong syrup."

  
"Whoops." Eren looked over what he was doing and fixed his mistake. My eyes locked onto his face, giving him a moment before I decided to inquire about what he was going to say. "So." He started, pausing a moment to pop the tubing together with the pop syrup. "Did Jean tell you about what happened?"

  
"About her promotion?" I asked.

  
"No, no-" Eren chuckled. "Not that. About what happened at that dinner?"

  
My hands immediately became uninterested in what they were doing, my full attention snapping to the brunette beside me. "What happened at the dinner?" I repeated. Jean didn't... tell her parents already, did she? Would she have done that without me there? With Eren there instead? Or by herself even? If she did, how did they react? She wasn't about to be thrown out too, was she? Or were they supportive of her the same way that Eren was and the way I should be?

  
Eren's face changed. It completely changed into one of pride. The pride for someone else. It was the same kind of face you saw on someone when their kid scores a winning point in a game. He was proud of her.

  
His face clarified what I had suspected and I felt my stomach sink. "He told his parents." It was the first time I had ever heard the correct pronouns used for Jean. It left me with a feeling of guilt. I didn't say anything, and I think Eren took that silence as a queue to continue. "I mean, they were confused at first but once Jean explained it, they were fine." The brunette was smiling wide as he recalled on what happened. "His mom was so supportive of him. They were already talking about getting Jean set up with a therapist." Eren looked up for the first time then, his glow cracking when he caught the aura around me.

  
Jean's parents had been more supportive then me. Eren had been more supportive than me. Levi had been more supportive than me. Everyone that had known so far had blown me out of the water for the one thing that I was supposed to be good at.

  
Something shut down in me then and I could swear I felt the exact moment it shut off. My body suddenly felt like it took over, like it knew this was going to be happening at some point and had been prepared for it. I sat there. Doing what, I wasn't sure. Eren had suddenly disappeared from my vision, and I couldn't for the life of me know what my hands were doing. I think they were working on the tubing, but they could've been moving aimlessly through the air for all I knew.

  
My ears started ringing. My skin suddenly felt too tight against my body. Something in the room was sucking all of the oxygen out of the air and made me suffocate. I couldn't tell where I was in that moment, because the only thing I was seeing was empty space.

  
Marco Bodt was the least supportive person in Jean Kirschstein's life.

  
Marco Bodt couldn't show support.

  
_You think it's bullshit, don't you?_  
  


Marco Bodt couldn't show support.

  
_Marco please- I thought you would supportive-_

  
Marco Bodt couldn't show support.

  
How did everyone get what I didn't?

  
Marco Bodt couldn't. Show. Support.

  
How was I supposed to fix this about myself?

  
Why did my chest hurt so bad all of a sudden?

  
All the thoughts I was having suddenly ceased and I became hyper aware of the feelings my body was going through. My chest hurt. My heart felt like it was trying to escape the confinements of my rib cage and it was willing to do whatever it could to do that. I didn't know what was going on with me. I couldn't figure out how to control what was happening and the fear of that seemed to make everything worse. My veins were pumping with icey blood and I tried desperately to get my mind to focus on something. It was as if I was dropped into a foreign space, the names of objects had been deleted from my mind and I could feel myself slipping deep into fear.

My heart was speeding up, quickening it's pace with each second that passed. My brain felt absent and disconnected, like it decided to cash out on participating in this moment. I couldn't see anything. I couldn't figure out what anything was and it was terrifying me.

  
Then my eyes locked onto a pair of vibrant green ones. My attention scattered away from them, staring down at the lips that appeared to be yelling my name, and then to the locks of hair that went off in every direction. They went back to his eyes, his lips, his hair. His eyes, his lips, his hair.

  
And then his voice broke through. "Marco, focus on your breathing. Marco!"

  
There was a second voice that came through that I barely recognized. "Marco, what's going on?" I didn't even know Oluo was in the room. "Is he having a heart attack, what's wrong?!"

  
"Marco, look at me." I found myself staring back into eyes that could mimic the sea. "You have got to _breathe_." It wasn't until he said that that I realized I was hyperventilating. "In and out, okay? -Keep looking at me. Just focus on my eyes."

  
In and out. In and out.

  
"Do I need to call an ambulance?!" Oluo's voice sounded worried. He had to of been if he was asking Eren for a second opinion.

  
"I-I don't know, Armin's never had a panic attack this bad before." Eren thought a moment, continuing to focus on me and make sure he had me grounded with him. He continued his synchronized breathing with mine, stopping only when he had to talk. "I've never seen Marco have one."

  
I followed his breathing. In and out. In and out. In- In again. Then I held it. Something suddenly felt off. I felt unstable and-

  
Before I could finish trying to figure myself out, I found myself hunched over and spitting out everything I had eaten before work.

  
Oluo made his decision then, dashing out of the room and leaving Eren to deal with the mess that I was. Eren moved quickly, disappearing for a moment and then coming back with our mop bucket and setting it down in front of me. I stared into the yellow plastic, the faint smell of bleach traveling through my nose and into my system. It made the nausea just slightly worse. I could feel the preparation for another hurl in my stomach, but it hesitated to come out.

  
Eren didn't say anything. He brought his hand to my back and ran it back and fourth in a soothing manner. The feeling of his hand reminded me of the pacing of my breath, bringing my brain into active mode a bit as I focused on synchronizing the two.

  
My chest still hurt. I was still confused about where I was. My body still felt like it was making decisions on its own, but I had control over my breathing. I was slowly starting to get my control back and it was comforting.

  
Oluo came back into the room, less frantic then he was when he left. "Levi told me to go ahead and call an ambulance. Can you stay until I get someone to cover Marco's shift?"

  
"Mikasa could probably do it. If no one else can, I'll stay but I'd like to be there with Marco." Eren replied.

  
Oluo nodded and then walked off again, leaving me with Eren for a second time. He remained silent, the rubs on my back being the most comforting thing I could ask for in that moment. My breathing hitched as I felt the nausea swirl around in my stomach. I could feel saliva build up in my mouth, letting me know a second round of vomiting would happen.

  
I closed my eyes to get rid of the blinding yellow in front of me and my stomach finally hit the eject button. Eren's hand stopped on my back for just a moment, but he brought it back into rhythm quickly.

  
I stayed hunched over the bucket for a while, my stomach twisting and turning as the two of us waited silently for something to happen. It didn't feel like I was at work, or that the thing I was waiting on was a ambulance ride to the ER room either. It didn't feel like anything was really happening but I sat there.

  
I sat there slowly trying to regain full composure and control over my body as I tried to think on how I just had my first panic attack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnddd who's ready for some drama to start happening? Because it's going to happen. Also Jean is going to be involved a lot more than how much he's been in here so far. Anyway, I hope this chapter was good enough for the year long wait... :'D ahah.hah...haaah.
> 
> [[also.. um.. as a side note. If anyone was a little curious about what happened over the year, I can talk about it. But I did open up a donation paypal account due to some things that happened. Don't worry, I'm not going to ask for money to continue this story because to me that's kind of rude. I'm just getting no where with trying out commissions and have now resorted to politely begging. So if you were at all curious, you can send me a message here or through tumblr @ bertholdtwhorever ]]]


	6. Momentum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually had a really good time writing this chapter so I really hope you enjoy it c: Thanks again for all the support, it means quite a lot to me! As always, feel free to nag at me on tumblr @ bertholdtwhorever.

The last time I had ever been in an emergency room was back when I was four or five years old. I'd been playing baseball with the neighborhood kids. Except we didn't have an actual baseball. We improvised and used a deflating basketball, and when that thing got flung at you, a metal bat definitely wasn't going to smack it away from you.

  
I made the swing, it wasn't like I missed it and swung so hard the bat mad its way round to the back of my head. No, the bat connected with the ball, but my five-year old arms didn't provide enough strength to push the ball away. Instead the deflating basketball absorbed the punch from the bat and used it to send the metal clashing against my forehead.

  
I didn't cry. Not until I came into the house looking for my mom with my hand over my wound and blood dripping from between my fingers. It wasn't until my mom began cleaning it up and inspecting the wound did I start to feel scared. Then she quietly whispered to me "You need stitches" and that was when the tears came.

  
That was the last time I was in the emergency room.

  
I wished the reason was as simple as needing stitches this time around but it wasn't.

  
Being taken to the ER in the back of an ambulance hadn't helped at all in slowing down my panic. The paramedic had checked my heart rate three times the whole ride there and made quite a few notes on their clipboard as they did. She did her best to be mellow and comforting but it wasn't helping.

  
The only thing that did help was having Eren there, even if he was part of the reason as to why I was in this state. Eren knew me, and he had plenty of experience from dealing with panic attacks from Armin. Even if mine had some how out done the blonds..

  
Before long I was at the hospital and sent through a process that ended me up in a gown and bed with a heart monitor wrapped around my finger and blood drawn from me. I hadn't calmed down much since Eren's breathing exercise, and the fast beeps on the monitor made sure to remind me of that.

  
I felt embarrassed being here. Like I was in the way of more important things. The ER was for emergencies, people who needed attended to right away because something horrible had happened to them, not because some boy had a minor crisis about his life.

  
It was about 45 minutes later that a nurse had swooped into my room and informed me she would be giving me something to help me relax. I only nodded, my jaw clamped together tightly the entire time I had been there. She made small talk with me as she injected me with a clear substance that felt like ice as it entered me. I didn't pay much attention to what she said until I heard the word 'visitors'.

  
"...I..I'm sorry, what was that?"

  
"You've got a few visitors, I can send them back now, but only if you want them."

  
My guess was that it was Eren and my parents. Maybe Jean. Maybe Bert. "Yes, please."

  
And with that she turned on her heel and headed out.

  
A few minutes had passed before I heard the curtain pulled open. I looked up to see that my guess had been right. My mom was the first one in, rushing to my side as soon as she got past the curtain. Then followed my dad, and Eren beside him.

  
"Oh my god sweetie, are you alright? Did they run any tests? They haven't asked any weird questions, have they?"

  
"Goodness Mila, give the boy some breathing space." It didn't surprise me that dad didn't bore the same worry that my mom did.

  
Mom took in a deep breath and calmly took a seat next to my bedside, but her eyes were screaming questions at me. I smiled at her.

  
"I'm okay, Mom. They said it was just a panic attack."

  
"You've never had any of those before." Mom reminded me, looking to Dad for some kind of answer.

  
He merely shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. "Shit happens." Was all he had to say.

  
"Well..." Mom turned back to me, her hand finding mine and comforting me with it. "What happened?"

  
I looked over to Eren then, meeting with his teal eyes and reminding myself of the panic attack that he witnessed. He gave me a sheep smile and I turned back to my mom. "I don't really want to talk about it yet. It's still...." I trailed off, ending my thought with just a shrug. Mom nodded, but her face was etched in more worry. She took in a breath and then looked over at Eren and then back to my dad.

  
"Alright well... Why don't we go and see if we can find some kind of snacks or something for you then?" Dad agreed with her and before I could say anything, the two left the room.

  
Eren moved towards my bedside then. He took a seat where my mom had been sitting and then leaned back. We were both quiet, unsure of what to say. Eren broke the silence like I imagined he would. "Hey so..." He sighed and looked up at me. "How're you feeling?"

  
"Better, I think."

  
"Have they given you anything yet?" He asked.

  
"Yeah." I showed him my shoulder where the nurse had tapped a cotton ball over the injection. "I'm not sure if it's kicked in yet though."

  
"Was it clear?" I nodded. "Cold?" I nodded again and Eren smirked. "Yeah you'll definitely feel that when it kicks in."

  
"I will?" I questioned, also wondering how Eren knew what it was.

  
"Oh yeah. I've been there the few times Armin's had to get a shot of that stuff. Trust me, you'll be able to tell when it hits you."

  
"Well.. then it probably hasn't hit me yet." I commented. Eren chuckled and then things went quiet again. The atmosphere felt awkward and uncomfortable. I could feel the way Eren was pitying me from how he would glance at me, and it made me want to tell him to leave. There was no reason to pity me.

  
"...I called Jean." He finally spat out. My heart twisted to the name. "He...really gave it to me after I told him what happened." Eren scratched the side of his nose and shook his head. "I didn't realize.." He hesitated to find the right words. "I don't know, I guess I just didn't think about how important that dinner was to you two. I mean looking back at it now, yeah it's fucking obvious but.. Jean wanted to be the one to tell you about it, and I see why now. He definitely knew the right way to I'm sure."

  
"No he didn't." I sighed. "I don't think he would've expected it to have gotten to me so much."

  
"Marco..." Eren mumbled. "...You and Jean..are okay, right?"

  
I instinctively wanted to say yes, but something about the question made me think. Were we? Was Jeanine becoming Jean really going to be something that caused us to not be okay? "I'm...really lost, Eren."

  
Eren's eyes widened for a moment, but he quickly bounced back. "Lost...like?" He questioned.

  
"I just.. I don't know." My mouth moved before I really formed coherent thoughts, but I didn't stop myself. "I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm supposed to be feeling, and what I'm not. It's confusing. It's weird." I ran a hand through my hair and kept going. "I know I'm head over heels for Jeanine, but it's hard to figure out what the hell I am to Jean. My brain just... can't land on a single conclusion towards all of this. It's just so fucking hard because.. I'm not dating a different person. It's still the same person I've known for years but.." I struggled for words. ".. I am dating someone totally different. It's Jean and while Jean is essentially Jeanine, I can't figure out what Jean is to me."

  
"Marco," Eren stopped me, keeping me from letting my thoughts run rampant. "That is all totally okay." My eyes looked to Eren's face, not expecting him to actually support my train wreck of a thought. "It's one thing to be a friend to Jean while he goes through this, but it's totally another when you're his boyfriend." I watched him, waiting for more from him before I trusted my brain to mull over those words. "Look, if you two weren't really close to me, I wouldn't bother saying this, but both of you are so stressed out about making whatever this is work." He made a wild hand gesture as he spoke. "You're obsessed with trying to fix everything, you want Jean to understand that you're helping, but you don't know when it's right to help. You're trying to fix what Jean wants to change, and you don't even realize it."

  
"What?" I mumbled, but Eren ignored it.

  
"And Jean," Eren rolled his eyes at the mention of the name. "The guy's so fucking stubborn." He shook his head. "Jean's willing to justify anything if it means keeping you two together. He told me what you said to him, and before he even finished telling me, he immediately went into how much you apologized and everything you were doing for him to make up for it." I looked down at my lap at the mention of that horrible moment, but Eren continued. "It doesn't stop there. He's...so blinded by you. I mean, I know what I'm going to say will sound like I'm painting you to be some bad guy, but you have to listen." Eren gave me a moment to soak in his words, but not enough for me to say anything. "He's talked about stopping. A lot. I mean, a lot. And I get it, he's scared, and he's already almost twenty, of course he's gonna think like that. But it's all because of you, Marco. He keeps filling his head up with all of these 'what if's and then concluding that the best answer is to just quit. Jean's scared you're not going to be happy with him through the stages and he's willing to give up everything he's put on the line already if it means making you two work."

  
"....I didn't-"

  
"-You didn't know, I know." Eren shrugged. "And he doesn't know all the things you've been doing to yourself either." He leaned back in his seat and rested his head over the top, eyes staring up at the white ceiling.

  
I found myself gripping the thin blanket that was resting on my lap as I soaked in everything Eren had to say. I felt like I had gotten some answers to things, but was also handed even more questions. "...What do I do?" It came out like a plea as opposed to a question. "I don't want to lose him Eren, but I don't know what to do."

  
Eren continued to stare up at the ceiling. He didn't move. "Look.. the advice I'd give you isn't going to be what you want to hear."

  
"I don't care about that." I commented. Eren kept his mouth shut though, like he was wondering whether or not he should even say it. But then he did, and I swore I thought I felt my heart crack.

  
"Break up."

  
"Why?" I found myself asking.

  
Eren sat up straight then, his eyes in deep thought as he put everything together. "Not forever. Maybe not forever. But I think the best thing for the two of you would be to get out of the relationship that's going toxic. You guys don't know each other anymore. And I think you're trying too hard to make yourself love something you're not familiar with."

  
"But Jean..."

  
"Marco, think about it like this.. If Jeanine had come up to you and said "Marco I'm a lesbian." What would you do then? You wouldn't try to make that work, that's just stupid. It's stupid and everyone would know that. She clearly told you she was a lesbian so why would keeping her in a hetero relationship benefit either of you?"

  
"But she's not-"

  
"-No, she's not. She's not anything anymore because it's Jean now. I think that because of the stage he's in right now, you can't see him as Jean. I mean, Marco have you even thought about what the end result was going to mean for you? Are you even interested in guys?"

  
The question circled around my brain for a moment, tossing it back and forth while Eren waited for an answer. I never thought about it. I never had to because I had been with Jeanine for so long. I couldn't imagine what attraction felt like to anyone but Jeanine. "I don't know... I never had to think about it."

  
"Well, now you have to.. And you don't have to even listen to any of this, this is just what I think would help you two out the most, but I think it'd just be better all around if you two broke up until you both sorted out your thoughts without letting the other have such an effect on it. I mean.. He's just started. He doesn't look all that different from what you know, but soon he will. You're going to be looking at a different person and the last thing you want to find yourself thinking is 'why did I let myself do this'?"

  
I didn't say anything. Eren's eyes lingered on me, before they darted to the heart monitor. He seemed to have forgotten the surrounding that we were in, because he immediately looked embarrassed. "We.. we shouldn't talk about this here. Sorry man. You don't need any more stress."

  
I heard what he said but I paid no attention. All I did was think about everything he had said before that. How did he have it all together? Eren seemed like a godsend compared to everything that had been shooting down at me. My heart hurt at the thought of even having the conversation with Jean about breaking up, but Eren had solid points. I was making this hard on Jean. Too hard on him. I wasn't doing any good by clinging onto to what I knew from him so desperately.

  
There was a weird feeling that washed over me then. The source of it was most likely the drug I had been given, but it felt like more than that. I felt the constricting grip around my neck loosen just a bit. Maybe I had been viewing this all from the wrong point. Even as I tried so desperately to accept Jean as he was, I definitely wasn't allowing him to be anything more than that.

  
I closed my eyes then, trying for a moment to imagine how different Jean would look when he reached where he wanted to be. It was difficult, but I tried as hard as I could to visualize it. The best I could do was take him at the furthest male point I'd seen him and sculpt it from there.

  
I let out a sigh, opening my eyes once again. I needed to see him and properly talk with him. The conversations we had were too detailed in the focus of our emotions and it wasn't doing us any good. "Eren?"

  
" 'M still here." He commented, looking at me like he knew I had drifted off to some other place.

  
"You'll take care of him, right?"

  
He chuckled, tilting his head at me. "Why're you talking like you're never going to see him again?" His words were arranged in the order of a joke, but I knew he was more concerned than he let off.

  
"Just.....In case, you know?" The drug must've properly settled into my system, the bed I was in suddenly feeling like a warm nest. My eyelids felt heavy and the room around me was less irritating and more welcoming. If Eren responded to me, I didn't hear him.

* * *

  
I woke up facing the familiar color of my ceiling. The arm that had been abused by a nurses' handiwork felt weak and sore, the muscle in it rather tender. It was dark in my room, making it hard for my brain to wrap around what time of day it was.

  
Turning my head, I noticed that Jean was crawled up beside me in my bed. My heart tugged looking him over. He hadn't even bothered to kick his shoes off and still had his hoodie on. It was comforting.

  
Looking past Jean, I noticed a blue dim light coming from the floor beside him. I stared at it for a long moment, trying to figure out what the hell was making that. It had to have been an electronic, but floating in the middle of my room?

  
The blue light then turned to me and illuminated the culprit behind its mystery. "Marco? Is that you?" It was in a very hushed voice but it was still unmistakable who it belonged to.

  
My eyes finally adjusted, watching as the blue light casted dark shadows against Bertholdt's face. He was sat up now, looking towards me most likely waiting for his eyes to adjust as well. "Hey." I whispered back to him, careful as I moved not to bother Jean.

  
"Hey." He repeated, putting away what had been _my_ DS I noticed.

  
"What time is it?" I questioned, clearly not getting an answer from my surroundings.

  
"A little past five."

  
"In the afternoon?"

  
"No, morning." Bertholdt knew what I was going to ask next. "I can't sleep. 'S not your fault." He paused then, and I was sure he shrugged. "Well, okay maybe it's a little your fault."

  
"When did I get home?"

  
"Around Midnight, so not too long ago." Bertholdt sat up properly then, and I think I caught his eyes moving from Jean's figure then back to me. "Want to get some fresh air?" He offered. Bertholdt had known me too long and was too good and understanding what I needed. I nodded, the two of us moving quietly afterwards. "Careful, Eren passed out by your door." He informed me as he noticed the route I decided to take could've ended up in stepping on Eren. It was then I realized the strange devotion my closest friends had towards making sure I was okay. I put a smile on my face, one that I didn't lose until the two of us finally managed to get through the hallway and out the front door.

  
We opted for walking around as opposed to Bertholdt driving. The cool summer air felt nice, the perfect temperature for a light jacket. I held my hands down at my sides, appreciating the comfort that came with Bertholdt's presence.

  
His hands were shoved down into his pockets, sight-seeing the neighborhood in the rare lighting it received. He was the one to break the silence. "Sorry we didn't get there sooner." His eyes stayed focused on his surroundings. "I went to the hospital with your parents, but turned around and got Jeanine after she blew up my phone. You were already asleep by the time we got there."

  
"That's okay." I shrugged. "I'm kind of glad I didn't see Jean then." I admitted.

  
"Jean...er, right." Bertholdt mumbled to himself, probably making a mental note to correct himself in the future. "...So..." He started, twisting his head to look at me. "You had a panic attack, huh?"

  
I laughed. "Yeah. Felt like a heart attack honestly. And I don't even know what those feel like."

  
"You must've had a pretty bad one then." Bertholdt commented, his words sounding like he understood the feeling. I knew Bertholdt had his fair share of anxiety issues, but I never thought of him as someone to ever go through attacks. If he did, he was amazing at hiding them. "Eren wouldn't tell me what caused it, I figured it had to of involved Jean."

  
"He came out to his parents." I said it a little faster than I had wanted to. "With Eren. During that dinner I was supposed to go to."

  
The words almost sounded like an attack, and I'm sure that's exactly what Bertholdt took it as. I had forgotten the reason Eren was there instead of me was because of what happened with Bertholdt. I had forgotten altogether the incident that he went through. "Marco I'm...sorry." His voice went small and I could tell he felt riddled with guilt. "You shouldn't have had to miss that, I would've been fine without you--"

  
"Bert, stop." I cut him off before he crippled himself any further. "It's okay. You needed me, and Jean still had someone to be there for him in the end. It all worked out, alright?"

  
He stared at me, worry and guilt still evident on his face. He turned away and very quietly mumbled. "No it didn't."

  
"Hey, what'd I say?" I teased, but Bertholdt completely ignored it.

  
"You were in the hospital, Marco."

  
"Yeah for a _panic_ attack." Bertholdt seemed to lose his fight after that, shaking his head and looking away. "And you guys were all there for me. My parent's don't really count cause you know, _parents_."

  
"Yeah, parents man," Bertholdt remarked, slapping me in the face with the reminder that he never got to have those. For a split second I felt horrible. In such a short moment I wanted to take the phrasing of my words and reorganize them, but then Bertholdt laughed. "With their gosh darn bickering and chores and knickknacks patty whacks." He did his best to make it obvious his words were in good humor.

  
I sighed. "I forgot."

  
"Me too," Bertholdt smiled. The two of us ended up wandering into a park that was relatively close to where I lived. Instinctively, we went to sit on the swings, flipping the seats over to escape the dampness of the mildew that had gathered there.

  
The thing about Bertholdt was that regardless of the situation, he was always comfortable. In the heat of arguments, during emotional moments, or just ordinary times he was always comfortable to be around. It was a nice escape to the frenzy I'd let my mind settle in, and I was starting to really enjoy the idea of Bertholdt living with me. My eyes glanced over to him, staring at the bad part of his profile. His eye was swollen shut still, but it didn't look nearly as puffy as I had worried it would. Even without being able to see much of his emotion from this side of his profile, I could tell he was in deep thought. It reminded me that I wasn't the only one who had some problems to work out.

  
"Have you talked to him yet?" My feet dug lightly into the woodchips underneath them, staring down at the scoff marks all along the rim of my shoes.

  
Bertholdt didn't need a name to know who I was talking about. "No."

  
"Mm," I hummed, rocking slightly in the swing. "Any reason why?"

  
He shrugged, but I could tell he had a reason. I gave him a moment to work out whether or not he would tell me. "I'm..scared to."

  
"Scared? You don't think Reiner would get mad at you, would you?"

  
"No, but he'd get mad at his parents." Clearly I didn't think of that. I also didn't see why that was his only reason.

  
"I'm sure he thinks I just moved out."

  
"I'm sure he thinks nothing like that." I corrected, arching a brow at him as if to gain further knowledge behind his decision. Bertholdt took one look over at me and finally caved, letting out a heavy sigh.

  
"He's got everything lined up for him, Marco." His fingers twisted together, eyes fallen down on the woodchips below us. "He's got a full ride, a family that loves him, a great future if he manages to go pro."

  
"Bert, his parents kicked you out-"

  
"-Exactly. _His_ parents. Not mine. They're his parents, and they're just trying to do what they think is right for him." His hands pulled away from his lap to clutch at the chain links that the swing dangled from.

  
"..." I didn't respond to his words, but instead asked the one question I'd been dying to know ever since my mom told me about her conversation with Reiner's mom. "Bert, how exactly _did_ you hurt your eye?"

  
He tensed. And I saw it. I saw everything in him then, and I saw just how fucking scared he actually was. I knew then what mom had told me was a lie, but I wasn't sure I wanted to know the truth either. I let the question linger, content on silence if Bertholdt wasn't able to answer but the words tumbled out of his mouth like a ball bouncing down the stairs. "Reiner's dad punched me."

  
My heart dropped, and mouth lingered open for a moment. "Ber..."

  
"I was scared, Marco I just- he kept yelling and getting closer to me and I freaked out. I shoved him away and he almost went down on the counter top." His grip on the chains tightened as he went back to that moment. "It just... Happened. I kept apologizing, but he lost it and punched me." Bertholdt's voice cracked. "I grabbed my stuff immediately afterwards and Garret kept shouting about how I should just 'go ahead and call the cops'-- _ughh_." I watched as Bertholdt buried his face in his hands, curling in on himself for a moment.

  
I probably should've kept my mouth shut and let him come back together but I was so angry for him. "Why didn't you?"

  
"Are you _kidding_ me, Marco?" He pulled away from his hands far enough to give me a look of disbelief. "They're _white_ and they have _money_. I shoved first, the poor orphan that's clearly _not_ white and is therefore wrong." I hadn't ever heard Bertholdt talk about himself that way before. There was such a strong aching in my chest for him, wishing I could've let him borrow all the privilege that I had as a single and very much loved child. Garret had done more damage to him then just his eye. "I would've been hauled off and spat out into a goddamn trap house or something." I was a bit embarrassed to admit that I didn't know what it was, and Bertholdt could tell the second he looked up at me. "Drug house, Marco."

  
"Ah..." I breathed. My eyes landed on the woodchips that I was stilling digging my shoes into, a heavy weight sinking into my stomach. Everything that was going on with Jean and mine's relationship paled in comparison to what Bertholdt continuously had to go through. He wasn't wanted as a kid, he wasn't wanted by the orphanage the second he was old enough, and even now he wasn't wanted by the first place he ever really got to call home. I surprised myself when I found my lip quivering over the realization.

  
My eyes landed on his body, staring at the way his shoulders hunched in on himself and hands lay limp in his lap. His head was down, staring into the mix of dirt and scrapped wood, but his mind was clearly somewhere else. He was strong. Bertholdt was incredibly strong and it took only until now for me to realize that. He was scared, but always strong.

  
My thoughts wandered to Jean then, making an odd comparison between the two situations. Jean had to have been so scared of everything, but he kept fighting his way through it. I wondered if the fear on his face would've matched Bertholdts the moment Garret had been yelling at him.

  
My heart twisted with hurt as Eren's words came back to me. He was absolutely right. I was trying too hard to help Jean change the things he didn't want changed. Our relationship wasn't the problem, no that was something that could never break. It was the steps we'd taken away from each other and the secrets we'd spilled to our closest friends. Jean and I never hid any of our emotions from each other, but I'd been so insistent on making sure he was welcomed with opened arms, I refused to let him see the confusion I had.

  
Bertholdt rocked in his swing a bit, a creak whining out of the metal. I couldn't imagine how he felt, being so disliked by parents that weren't his for being a person that he clearly wasn't- it made everything in me ache. In entirely different ways, Jean and him were in a similar battle. Bertholdt's had been long and ongoing, and who knew how long ago Jean had started his. They were both fighting for something that they should've had the right to since the beginning.

  
Bertholdt looked like he was about to say something but stopped when he caught the bubbling of a laugh from behind my sealed lips. He turned to me, and I felt his gaze, but the laughing didn't stop. It got worse actually. Maybe it was an ephiany moment, or maybe I just let myself go insane without realizing it.

  
I hunched forward, my head down by my knees and my arms around my waist as I laughed continuously. "Mar....?" Bertholdt questioned, clearly worried about my mental state.

  
"T-this is fucking hilarious," I panted between laughs. "I had.. a panic attack over-over, a goddamn _dinner_ , but you-!" There was a snort as I tried to catch my breath. "Y-you haven't got anywhere to live--hell you've _never_ had anywhere to live!" Bertholdt was clearly taken by surprise at my words, but I didn't let him interrupt. "You don't--- You don't really get to apppeciate what the word 'home' means, but I-" I fell out of my swing by that point, landing on my knees and dropping my head to the ground to try and muffle the laughter. "I end up in the ER room over a dinner!"

  
I didn't notice Bertholdt had moved from his swing, but he was beside me then, clearly worried for me. The laughing bubbled through me, but it slowed down. I rolled my head towards him, giving him a look that would hopefully ease his worry. He met my eyes and shook his head. "Marco Bodt, you're a goddamn lunatic."

* * *

  
The sun had started to finally creep its way up into the sky by the time we rounded the last corner home. We talked about little things after we left the park, leaving all the tense emotion back at the swings. As we stepped closer to my house, we could both tell there was a figure sitting on the porch. I knew it was Jean before he really came into view, but I kept my pace with Bertholdt. It was the first time in a long time that I hadn't felt any dread at seeing him and I took that as a step forward.

  
It felt as if the self-pity cloud that had settled around my head had finally been lifted, and it pushed me forward with confidence. As we walked up the walk-way to my front door, silence fell between us.

  
Jean watched us, his eyes heavy with a need for sleep but refusing to let them fall. He hadn't bothered to fix his wild bed head, locks of it standing up in all different directions. His feet were resting on the step below the porch, face deadpanned as Bertholdt and I came closer.

  
Bertholdt waved to Jean continuing forward when I stopped. "I'm gonna go steal the bed before Eren manages to wake up long enough to snatch it." With a nod, he stepped inside leaving Jean and I on my porch.

  
I smiled at him and took a seat beside him. "Hey there, love."

  
"I thought Bertholdt took you back to the hospital." He stated, letting his head fall onto my shoulder. "Could've sent me a text."

  
"I didn't think about that." I admitted, realizing that was a perfectly logical worry. "But I think one panic attack is enough to tie me over for quite a while." I joked.

  
Jean didn't seem to find it funny. He didn't react at all. I slid my hand around his shoulders and pulled him just a bit closer to me, forgetting how natural Jean and I seemed to fit together. We just sat in silence for a bit, appreciating the rare chance of watching a sunrise together.

  
For the second time that day, I wasn't the one to break the silence.

  
"I didn't plan on telling them without you Marco."

  
I turned away from the blends of warm colors spreading through the sky and looked down at Jean. His face was tired, and his eyes looked puffy from what I could only guess was crying. I merely hummed in response.

  
"My parents expected something for such a big dinner and the whole time they just _stared_ at me waiting." He didn't even blink as he continued to stare forward. "I know to someone else it was probably just a normal dinner but it was eating me alive the whole time...." He took an inhale of breath. "Mom started poking at the surprise, thinking up all kinds of things and I just cracked." Jean nuzzled closer to me. "Dad didn't care at all. Mom seemed to have already known. Sure I gave it away from everything I'd been doing lately I guess." I let him speak, listening to each word that came from his mouth and soaking it up. It didn't occur to me that Jean would ever put so much blame on himself until I heard the quietest sniffle come from him after he buried his face into my shirt. I rubbed along his shoulder for support, a smile cracking onto my lips.

  
"I don't blame you, Jean." I started. "I got a bit jealous I guess, but what happened was because of my own emotions."

  
He pulled himself out from my shirt and looked up to me, eyes glossed over but no tears shed. "Yeah?"

  
"Yeah." I reassured. "I think I needed that, as strange as it sounds. I feel better now- a lot better actually."

  
"Well....Good." Jean huffed. "Cause I really wish it'd been you there instead of Eren."

  
"At least someone was there with you."

  
Jean didn't reply to me. There was clearly a lot more to be said about what happened but for the time being, neither of us seemed to have the energy for that. It would happen though, that much I would make sure of.

  
"So, what the fuck happened to Bertholdt's eye?"

  
"Oh right," I had completely forgotten that I never got the chance to explain that to him. " 'Member how I had a good reason to cancel?"

  
"I figured that's what it was when I saw him. I didn't have the guts to ask him after he made me drive because of his depth perception."

  
"I'm surprised you two made it there alive if he had you drive." I teased, receiving a cackle from Jean.

  
"Hey, he at least taught me how to stop properly." Jean's eyes fluttered closed gently, doing his best to keep his mind awake as the sun struggled to pull itself high enough to warm the earth.

  
I chuckled, watching the sun rise as Jean gently began to fall asleep against my shoulder. We'd talk eventually, but for now I couldn't have been more content with the moment.

* * *

  
"Come see me before you run out of here, alright?" I had just walked into work, surprised by the results of a slow work day. Levi had thrown the words out at Jean as he dashed towards the office, Jean only getting a nod in before the short man was gone.

  
I arched an eyebrow at Jean to which he shrugged in response. Jean had just started managing the store a few days ago, but from what it sounded like, he hadn't made many mistakes. Levi's tone didn't exactly sound like Jean was in trouble, but you could never be too sure when it came to him.  
I moved on and began getting ready for my shift, the brief minutes of the shift change being the only time I ever really got to see Jean at work. Levi had kept true to his word about keeping us on opposite shifts. His reasoning for it made sense, but that didn't mean it made me happy.

  
If anything it irritated me. He did his best to give us similar time off but man did it suck not seeing Jean as much. It was especially irritating knowing that there was this big conversation that needed to be had, but neither of us could sink our teeths into it before time ran off with it.

  
I stepped into the back area, looking for things to stock. It was another overnight shift, but it was the first one I had worked with Levi in a long time. I hadn't actually seen Levi since before my trip to the ER.

  
"Hey Marco." I turned my head down one of the aisles that held our stock to see Armin standing there, greeting me in between one of his tasks. He looked to be getting ready to head out the door.

  
"Hey," I waved back. It was strange to think that working with all your friends could actually restrict how often you saw them. Armin, Krista, and Mikasa had become rare sights to see, so the brief meetings we did get seemed filled to the brim with neglected friendship.

  
"Have you been doing okay? Everyone's been talking about your trip to the ER." Armin probably understood what I went through physically more than anyone, but his concern felt like just a conversation starter.

  
I fanned him off. "Yeah, yeah. I'm fine now. It was from too much stress, big surprise." The blond chuckled, ending his task and double checking himself for all his things before he left. "Headed home?"

  
"Nah, I'm going over to Eren's." He commented. "I've finally managed to suck him into Game of Thrones so we're gonna marathon that for a bit." He looked as if he wanted to ask me to come along but the obvious circumstance prevented that. "Do you watch it?"

  
"Not yet." I really wanted to, but it was slowly becoming a very intimidating marathon session to work through. "I know I will eventually, but I'm still working my way through the list Sasha and Connie gave me."

  
For a brief moment, things clicked like we hadn't gone weeks of working opposite schedules and not seeing each other. Armin had so much he wanted to talk about but we both knew there wasn't time for it. He was finally making his steps towards the exit, but a nostalgic look came over his face. "I can't say I hate this job, but I do really miss when everyone was able to hang out."

  
I couldn't have agreed with him more.

  
"Some day this summer we will, I'm sure." He offered me his signature smile and then finally headed off to his waiting marathon session.

  
I followed him out to the floor, turning my attention towards the counter where Levi had reappeared from the depths of his office. He was going through some kind of check list but spared a glance up at me. "Jean still here?" He questioned.

  
"Idunno," I shrugged. Before I could go look, his mop of faded bleached hair popped up from around the corner, his things on him and ready to leave.

  
"I'm still here jesus." He commented. "I didn't forget that fast, Levi."

  
"Good," Levi seemed intent on making sure he finished his current task before paying Jean any mind. We stood in a weird silence for a moment, Jean leaning against the counter as he watched Levi's hand mark scribbles down his stack of papers.

  
Then he finally finished and set the clipboard aside. "So." He started, digging into his pocket and pulling out a neatly folded copy of this weeks current schedule. "I finally got in touch with that old friend of mine." Jean's interest was immediately piqued. "She's gonna be free on Thursday, which will work out good since you're off and I work over night. So as long as you're free--"

  
"--I'm free." Jean cut in eagerly. "Completely free. When are we gonna meet her?"

  
"I was hoping for noon since I've got class at four, but she hasn't gotten back to me on a time yet. She's insistent as shit about meeting up at that damn coffee place around the corner from here." After the words left Levi's mouth, I immediately knew why he was cursing it.

  
"The Bean? What's wrong with that place?" Jean asked.

  
"That's where Levi's tea girlfriend works." I pointed out.

  
Levi's eyes immediately shot to me, glaring. Jean on the other hand, got excited. "Whoa the overnight tea bringer? I didn't think she was real."

  
"She's real and she's exactly why I don't want to go there." Levi spat.

  
"What? Why not? I could bring Marco and it'll be like, a weird double date plus one event." Jean joked.

  
Levi rolled his eyes. "Don't count on it."

  
"Hasn't she given you her phone number every time she's come in here?" Jean asked, looking to me for an answer when Levi didn't provide one.

  
"Every single time." I stated.

  
Levi let out a sigh. "Look, shit's complicated alright? Just drop it." The two of us behaved and did as we were told. "But Marco, you're welcome to come if you can. We both close that night so it should give you enough time to get some rest in between."

  
"Startin' to sound like a double da-oof-!" I had elbowed Jean in his side before he got the chance to finish his statement. Last thing I wanted was to deal with a pissed off Levi all night while Jean got to walk out scot-free.

  
Levi seemed to appreciate my effort, providing a rare chuckle as he headed off with his clipboard.

  
The whole event had just knocked Jean's mood up completely, even if his gestures didn't show it as much. He gave me a much more thrilled goodbye and then headed home to leave me to my horrible graveyard shift.

  
Things hadn't changed much, but the little bit of change seemed to be for the better. Maybe it was just my mood, or the exhausting realization I had with Bert on the swings at five in the morning, but it felt like things were finally going to start moving forward and not sticking around in this thick mud it'd caught itself in.

  
Eren was right to an extent, but I never thought once about his suggestion to break up with Jean. The only thing I could hope for was that it wouldn't come back to some how bite me in the ass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I just say it's much easier to write Jean now that Marco's finally using 'he' instead of 'she'?? I promise Jean will be making much more frequent appearences from this point on, he's been so scarce lately, but the story is about him in the end. Hope you enjoyed :D


End file.
